Juan Velasco, 1963-2024: Long-time Albuquerque radio host remembered for his infectious smile and caring heart

Friends say that Juan Velasco, veteran on-air host at Albuquerque’s 92.3 KRST Country, had a smile so huge and genuine you could see it from a distance and hear it on the radio.

“You could feel the smile in the inflection of his voice,” said Chaz Malibu, on-air personality for Big 98.5 KABG and one of Velasco’s many friends. “What was wonderful about Juan was that he was the same person on the radio as he was in person. On air or off, he could meet a person and make an impact that would make that person a friend for life.”

Bev Rainey, KRST program director and Velasco’s on-air partner for their “Live in the 505” show, 3-7 p.m. weekdays, said Velasco was so easy to be around that people would forget he was a radio personality.

“He was always full of jokes and laughing,” Rainey said. “But he was an immediate friend to anyone who walked up to him, and he was always there to help. ‘How can I help?’ I heard that come out of his mouth for so many people.”

Velasco, who grew up in Alamogordo, died July 27 at an Albuquerque hospital. He was 60. Survivors include his sons Juan III and Gabriel. Services are pending.

He had been a New Mexico radio personality for more than 40 years, almost 30 of them at KRST.

“You never met a more down to earth, humble, energetic and talented person than Juan Velasco,” Malibu said. “He was the voice of country music in Albuquerque.”

Rowdy Howdy

According to KRST, Velasco worked at radio stations in Alamogordo and Las Cruces before joining KRST in the early ‘90s. That’s when Malibu met him.

“KRST hired me full time at nights and a week later they hired Juan part time,” Malibu said. “I met him in the studio, he was running boards for everybody. He was amazing on everything, especially sound.”

Malibu left KRST after a few years, but he and Velasco remained close. They shared not only their love of music and radio but also their Hispanic heritage.

“He’d see you coming, and there’d be this infectious smile,” said Malibu, whose real name is Shawn Mondragon. “He would always greet me with a hug, a kiss on the cheek and ‘Hello, amigo.’”

Rainey had been Velasco’s on-air partner for about two years. She said it was a tough day this past week when KRST changed its online logo to reflect that she is now doing the show solo.

“He named it ‘Live in the 505,’ and I’m not changing that,” she said.

She recalled Velasco’s favorite greeting, on air and otherwise, a boisterous “Rowdy Howdy,” and the way he would tease her on air.

“He’d say something to push my buttons because he’d know I’d get feisty,” Rainey said. “He’d just laugh. We had fun. We would dance in the studio together.”

She said Tuesdays were taco Tuesdays for Velasco, the day he set out in the city to check out tacos at different cafes and restaurants.

“He’d say, ‘Let’s go,’ and anyone who wanted to go could go,” Rainey said.

“Taco Tuesdays were a religious holiday for Juan,” Eddie Haskell, KRST’s on-air host from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, said. “If he noticed something was irritating you, he’d say, ‘It’s nothing tacos can’t fix.’”

Many kind things

The Monday after Velasco died, KRST opened up its airwaves to calls from listeners who wanted to talk about him.

“I heard about so many kind things I never knew he did,” Haskell said. “Every corner you turn, there is a story about him helping someone who needed it.”

He said a former radio employee told how Velasco gave her a TV after her television was stolen from her car.

Haskell heard about a woman, attired in equestrian gear, who stopped by KRST to pick up concert tickets and got into a conversation with Velasco. When Velasco learned much later that the woman had been injured in a horse accident, he went to her hospital room and was holding her hand when she woke up, Haskell said.

“She was someone he just met at the radio station, but if there was a way he could enrich your life, he would. If you looked busy and frustrated, he’d ask, ‘What do you need me to do?’ And if it involved going out to meet the public, he was the first in line.”

Rainey said the thing she will miss most about Velasco is his hug.

“Every single day at the end of the show, no matter what was going on, he walked me out to my car,” she said. “He’d give me a big hug and say, ‘Let me know if you need anything.’”

The Juan and only

Besides working at KRST, Velasco had a mobile DJ business, entertaining at weddings, graduations, celebrations of all kinds.

“Mobile DJing is hard, but Juan was the best. He knew how to work a crowd,” Malibu said. “There was only one person I wanted to be the DJ at my wedding — the Juan and only.”

Rainey said Velasco would come into the radio station on Mondays and congratulate on air the brides and grooms whose weddings he had worked as DJ the previous weekend.

Velasco also worked some years back as a weekend weatherman for KOAT-TV.

Malibu said he watched his friend doing weather on TV.

“He didn’t really know what he was doing, but he jumped in and did the best he could,” Malibu said. “He got the biggest kick out of it. He made it fun.”

Rainey said the one thing Velasco disliked about his TV weather gig was that they put makeup on his forehead.

The job Velasco took most seriously, Malibu said, was being a father.

“When you talked to Juan, immediately he’d bring up his boys,” Malibu said. “He was an incredible father.”

Tough times, best times

“The number one thing I think of when I think of my dad is how much he cared for us,” said Gabriel, Velasco’s younger son and the band director at La Cueva High School. “And he showed that by always being there — through high school, college, graduations, he would always show up and make it the most important thing to him at that given moment.

“My brother and I are as different as can be, but our dad was exactly the person we needed him to be.”

Juan III, Velasco’s older son and a registered nurse at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho, remembers the tough times before his father started at KRST, times that very likely forged his father into the caring person everyone knew.

Juan III said he, his father and his brother were living in a small apartment off Gibson. His father was trying to get his mobile DJ venture going and working as food and beverage manager at the Hilton, now the Crowne Plaza.

“We used sound equipment, speakers, as furniture for the longest time,” he said. “When he started working at KRST, it was like a dream. There was no guarantee he was going to make it in radio, that the DJ company was going to work. But he just started working 100%, grinding it. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“That was some of the best times I remember with Dad, because it showed (Gabriel) and me about fortitude, sticking to your goal, chasing the dream. We take a lot of the work ethic we have from that. He just kept going, and it paid off.”