KMIN serves Cibola county from Grants, New Mexico with
1000 watts of a variety of Country Music to keep you foot tapping on KMIN COUNTRY 980 AM.
Hear local events,
weather and Interstate 40 conditions.
KMIN is Grants heritage station serving our community
since 1956.
KMIN Through the Years. . .
KMIN signed on the air in July of
1956 as the first radio station licensed to Grants New Mexico.
KMIN was the only station with a good strong signal between Gallup and
Albuquerque. John Blake was the original owner of this new radio station. The
programming was diverse. Easy listening music was heard in the mornings. Polka
music was heard mid-days and classical in the afternoon. In those
days, KMIN was required to sign off at sunset and sign on again at
sunrise.
There are two explanations of what the call letters mean. One is that John Blake's wife was named Minnie. Min for short. The other explanation is that Grants was a mining town. For many years the station was called K-Mine Radio. No one seems to know which is true.
In 1961 John Blake and his partner Dave Button sold KMIN to Tom Foster from Center Texas. July 15, 1962 The programming was changed to a Popular Music format. The first song of the new format was Toni Fisher singing "Hurt". It was played by the man who would be the KMIN General Manager for 20 years, Bernie Bustos Senior.
In November 1964, KMIN was sold to James B. Barber who owned the station until 1983 as KMIN,Inc. Mr. Barber also owned the town newspaper. KMIN stayed with the Pop format until 1975 when it was changed to Country Music. By the late 1970's, the format was a mix of Country and Popular music.
1983 brought another new owner. Don Davis of
Albuquerque purchased KMIN and moved the studios to their current
location on Roosevelt Ave. Don moved KMIN to 1400 on the dial for a brief
period so it
could stay on at night. When the Federal Communications Commission changed the
nigh time signal
rules, KMIN moved back to 980 with a 250 watt signal at night. Don put KMIN-FM
on the air and moved the Country format to the FM dial. KMIN-AM became a
Rock & Roll Oldies station. KMIN-FM has had several call letter
changes and in 2000 was sold to an out of state broadcasting company.
KD Radio, Incorporated purchased KMIN and another FM in Grants in January 2001. Having had much success with kdradio.com in California, it was decided to put the massive KD Radio oldies format of 7000 songs on a broadcast station. The response has been very good.
KMIN is a community station and broadcasts local events like the annual Mt. Taylor Quadratholon, High School sports and La Fiesta De Colores.
After all these years KMIN is a strong presence in the community and is still the top rated station in the market.
On June 14, 2004 KMIN's Sound Souvenir's format moved over to the FM side of the dial, on KMIN's sister station KDSK located at 92.7 on the FM dial. Due to the Sound Souvenir's strong showing in the ratings, number one in it's market, management made the decision to move the format to the stronger FM signal. KMIN 980 was changed to a Country format using the music that was sent to the station over the last 50 years, as well as today's current hits.