KOOL brings back a missed Valley favorite tonight, designating the 7pm to midnight shift to Camelback Jack.

Jack has been on-the-beach since getting the budget cutting ax from the station in December of 2008. He has spent nearly seventeen years, prior, “riding in the front seat” with KOOL listeners each weekday afternoon.

Now Jack is able to return to the station and listeners who love him most, in the evenings. He takes place of the syndicated Tom Kent show.

He is no stranger to the Phoenix market– in fact, many longtime Phoenicians may know him from the KRIZ 1230 (AM) days as the Chucker– Chucker Dean. He was the last on-air as the station came to an end in 1978.

This recording captures the final moments of KRIZ then, and Camelback Jack, as Chucker Dean, wrapping it up and asking for listeners to honk their horns when the station falls silent:

Since joining KOOL in 1992, he has put the numbers in the books for his time slot and is a top rated afternoon on-air personality of all-time in the Phoenix market.

Jack is also known for his salute to our nation’s veterans, honoring each day on-the-air and in the charities and benefits he does in his off-time for organizations such as “Packages from Home.”

Last Monday, coming out of a “Beatle Mania Weekend,” KOOL announced in the morning that Mondays were for Beatles. Along with the greatest hits, KOOL’s playlist includes a few blocks of Beatles or Beatle artists together. This came on the same day that Steve Goddard interviewed  Danny Zelisko, who announced Paul McCartney coming to the Valley in March.

Mondays continue to be “Beatle Mania” days on KOOL since. It is not known how long it is to last.

KNIX’s morning duo, Ben and Matt, hosted the Parada del Sol Pro Rodeo and Historic Parade in Scottsdale Saturday. The parade, which as taken place for 57 years, began at 10am and runs up Scottsdale Road from Oak to Indian School.

Ben and Matt were located at the Scottsdale Road and Indian School intersection. Hosts were present at other intersections along the way, including Radio Free Phoenix’s Liz Boyle and Andy Olson at Scottsdale and Osborn, and a reunion of the KDKB morning team, Bill Andres and John Giese.

Back in mid-December, PhoenixAirchecks.com got first word from a friend of Jeffrey T. Mason that he will be KMLE Country 108’s new afternoon personality, set to begin Jan. 11 (originally– but the debut has since been moved to the 13th) and that this will be “my second run with OM Kris Abrams. We worked together at WFBC/Greenville in 1995,” Mason told AllAccess.com.

Now since yesterday, word from the same source is that Jeffrey will also get a full-time position at 94.5 KOOL-FM, a sister station of KMLE at CBS Radio Phoenix playing classic hits.

The word came suddenly, as he updated his homepage with large, bold font, “This just in,” and beginning the news with “there’s yet another twist to this story…” He will start at KOOL on Monday, Jan. 25, in the 10am-1pm time slot.

Many maneuvers are happening recently around CBS Radio Phoenix, including the replacement in Market Manager by bringing in Tim Pohlman, and most recently bringing in Bruce St. James to program KMLE and KZON, leaving Kris Abrams to program only KOOL.

Tim Pohlman will be joining CBS Radio Phoenix as their new market manager after the announced departure of Mark Waters in November. Pohlman will join the three station cluster consisting of country KMLE, classic hits KOOL, and top 40/rhythmic KZON.

Pohlman is no stranger to CBS Radio or the duties as market manager. He had been market manager of CBS Radio Los Angeles’ cluster. He has been CEO of Riviera Broadcasting.

Tuesday morning power outages in the Valley have not only left an estimated 18,000 people without electricity, according to APS spokeswoman Jenna Henry, but also briefly knocked out several major Phoenix FM radio stations.

Several– if not a majority– of the FM stations went to static around 10:27am. The static lasted for a minute or two before broadcasts returned on-air. A few others, like KOOL-FM, went from static to silence for a few moments more.

A second occurrence reportedly occurred just minutes shy of 11am, that affected Bonneville’s KPKX and KTAR-FM. Since both stations returned just before the noon hour, we presume the hour was used for transmitter work. Both are located on South Mountain, which supports a majority of Phoenix FM radio station transmitters.

Tom Peake and Maria Knight return Monday morning from broadcasting Friday from the “Happiest Place on Earth,” Disneyland. It was all a part of the celebration of Tom Peake’s 30 years at KOOL-FM, which reached that milestone in September.

KOOL made an event out of it and invited listeners– some of which won trips to Disneyland on-air and online. Tom and Maria, as well as afternoon personality, Steve Goddard, broadcasted live from Disneyland throughout the day.

When will we get some Christmas music on the radio? 99.9 KEZ, or how about 94.5 KOOL-FM? You can find the question asked on websites such as Yahoo! Answers.

It’s late November and we had no shortage of Christmas music this time last year. In fact, no shortage of it on Halloween. The season hasn’t seen the light of day so far in 2009.

As of this morning, the Christmas music lovers’ eagerly awaited wish has finally come true. KEZ kicked off all-Christmas this morning at 8am.

KOOL has yet to flip to all-Christmas– as the website hints that it may play Christmas here and there, it also provides a station on KOOLradio.com to be streamed that plays only Christmas music. It could be a holiday race not chosen to venture, unlike last year’s excitement and spirit.

Mark Waters has left the building at CBS Radio Phoenix as Sr. VP/Market Manager, overseeing Country station KMLE, Classic Hits KOOL, and Rhythmic/Top 40 KZON.

In 2006, Waters left Bonneville Phoenix. He joined CBS Radio Phoenix in November 2006, and has held the Sr. VP/Market Manager position of the three station cluster since February 2007, succeeding Marco Camacho.

It is not known at this time who the replacement will be.

Last year we got an early Christmas music battle between 99.9 KEZ and 94.5 KOOL-FM.

KEZ, the “Holiday Station” of many years, has yet to flip to all-Christmas music this season. Rumor had it that the flip was to occur November 1, but word got out too early on the Phoenix Radio-Info.com boards. The date also drew national attention in Radio-Info’s newsletter by Tom Taylor. Several days later, a new date was disclosed by the same anonymous informant on the Phoenix Radio-Info board as being November 16, which is today.

During the weekend, new all-Christmas competitor, KOOL (since flipping to all-Christmas last year on Halloween before the doorbells even rang), began advertising Christmas to happen, and to listen Monday (today) at noon.

Considering the KEZ Christmas rumor to be true, and imagining the KOOL Christmas date for today as being a reaction to it, today is a potential day for an all-Christmas music showdown, balk, or tease– and what better day than on a Monday?

We should soon witness which Phoenix radio station sits on Santa’s lap first.