Curtis Ritter (EMCEEIII): A Decade on the Arizona Airwaves

For those who remember the golden era of 1990s Arizona radio, EMCEEIII was a staple of the broadcast landscape. With a nine-year career in commercial radio, Curtis Ritter played a pivotal role behind the scenes and on the air during the format-defining years of the early decade.

Career Highlights:

●     KEDJ, "The Edge" (FM 106.3), Phoenix: A veteran of the legendary alternative rock station during its peak 1990s run. Curtis was there for the very first Edgefest in 1993, and 1994 witnessing the rise of the Southwest's alternative scene alongside bands like School of Fish, DADA, 311, Goo Goo Dolls, and Stone Temple Pilots.

●     KGME, "The Game" (AM 1360), Glendale: From 1993 to 1994, Curtis served as the Morning Show Technical Producer and Coordinator during the station's pioneering transition to an all-sports format. He was the engine behind the scenes for high-energy shows like "The Sports Nuts"and "Loose Cannons."

●     KZGL, (95.9 FM), Cottonwood and Flagstaff: Bringing professional broadcasting and Classic Rock-N-Roll home to Northern Arizona.

Today, www.emceeiii.com serves as the permanent home for some of this legacy digital archive for listeners and colleagues. This idea of a website originates back to 1997 at GeoCities and later moved to AOL servers in 1999, and later to ASU.edu in 2002, then restarted on CSUS.edu in 2014, and finally home here with the help of GoDaddy. Curtis has maintained this platform as a digital archive for his colleagues and listeners who shared the airwaves with him during a transformative decade in broadcasting.

The player below was originally posed as a challenge from a listener for him to make an attempt to construct a free running audio feed similar to what was done in his early childhood days. The live stream-cast radio icon was a platform for sharing ideas, poetic stories and artwork for any remaining listeners but today is permanently turned off and disconnected. EMCEEIII has no plans to turn it back on anytime soon due to lack of time and on-going maintenance.