User:Kenwood101/Ken Richards (Providence, R.I.)

Ken Richards Real name Ken Atkinson is the son of Kenneth Edward Atkinson and Diana Kansievicz Atkinson born January 4, 1971  in East Greenwich Rhode Island.Kenneth has one brother by the name of Douglas.Kenneth's parents seperated in June of 1977 and Diana took full custody of Kenneth and his brother and moved to Providence which for the next 9 years shared an apartment house with his Grandmother and other relatives in 6 family tenament house in Providence Rhode Island until 1986. Kenneth always had a passion for radio and was known in the later part of the 80's and 90's on local CB radio as "Kenny the Kid".Kenneth was well known in the C.B. radio world and personally knew about 80 percent of the C.B ers from theProvidence to Pawtucket Area.

In 1989 Kenneth became very interested in a new radio station that had taken over 101.5 fm in Providence.The station was B101.5 oldies.After listening to Daria Bruno one night decided that this was his calling and imediatly contacted Matt Chase General Sales Manager at WWBB radio and was invited to meet with him and Cynthia Davis Promotions director where he agreed to dress up as the station mascott of "Buzzy the Bee" in exchanged to learn the ropes of the business.Program director and afternoon drive host John Morgan immediatly took a liking to Kenneth for his ambition and invited him into the studio to help pull music and produce the afternoon all request program "Car-tunes".John Morgan and Bruce Palmer were working on an idea for Saturday Nights for an all Request oldies program.Kenneth was promoted to a pay position as the official producer of The Program "ALL REQUEST SATURDAY NIGHT" where he assisted Bruce until December or 1991.

Kenneth decided to take on a bigger responsibilty and accepeted a Board-Op position at Providence's WWLI and WLKW.After the FCC deregulated ownership of radio stations from 1 FM and 1 am to just about as many stations you want to own.Telemedia(owner of WWLI and WLKW)purchased WPRO and WPRO-AM.Kenneth was released from his duties when WWLI and WLKW moved into the same office space that it occupies today at 1445 Wampannoug Trail in East Providence.That afternoon of him being released from WWLI and WLKW Dick Allen of WHIM-AM called Kenneth and offered him an On-Air position at 1110 am WHIM playing Classic Country.Kenneth did a variety of shifts including Afternoon drive. While at WHIM Kenneth met someone by the name of Steve Conti an over night Disc Jockey at Radio station 99.3 WBLQ-FM (Block Island) and told Kenneth of an opening at a Modern Rock Radio Station in Southern Rhode Island and thought his upbeat personallty would be a great fit for the format.Kenneth quickly jumped at the deal to host his own weekend overnight Rock show playing Classic rock favorites like Led Zeppilin,Steve Miller and new bands like Live and Soundgarden. This run lasted about 2 years where he did this until the station was sold in January of 1996.

After WBLQ was sold in 1996 Kenneth got involved with Live events and hosted the "Rock and Bowl" Saturday Nights at AMF Lang's in Cranston Rhode Island for the next 5 years.

Kenneth's radio career has dwindled down to working per-deim at WBLQ-LP in Ashaway Rhode Island and has worked other full time jobs outside of the broadcast industry.

Kenneth now resides in North Providence, Rhode Island