John Button

On Earth Since: May 1949

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

With KVMR Since: 1999

KVMR's Webmaster

Phone: (530) 205-4521

Email: webmaster @ kvmr.org

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Even though I was born in San Francisco, I only remember growing up around Ft. Bragg, Calif. when it was a real small town, with a single stop sign on Highway 1.

Pretty much a northern California guy, after Ft. Bragg I earned my culture shock wings with my 3rd grade year spent in the West Oakland housing projects, where I went from a very white rural small town to an industrial inner city 'project' where I received my immediate minority citation.

Much later we moved to Rancho Cordova, where after graduating in 1967, the 'Summer of Love,' I spent my first Summer out of school as a basic trainee at Ft. Ord as part of my enlistment in the Army Reserves ... the plan was to stay at home, get a part-time job and go on to college.

Sometimes ... the best laid plans and all kinda get sidetracked by the day to day. A couple years later, returning after the annual 2-weeks Army Reserves Summer Camp, during which I had to move from the place I was renting with a friend which left me homeless. About this time Sacramento's latest hippy upstart radio station KZAP was doing 'Free Market Ads' that let listeners advertise for rides or places to crash and so on.... perfect for me.

The surprise was the phone call, offering me a place in Rancho Cordova in exchange for a little housework and keeping the pool clean, from the General Manager of KZAP... which is why I've ended up here in Nevada City and KVMR. The few years I spent at KZAP, throughly indoctrinated me with a love of all kinds of music, and caused me to be spearated from the Reserves due to being deemed 'unfit for military service' after a brief visit to Letterman Hospital in San Francisco.

After KZAP, I ended up as a welder/fabricator at a small welding shop for about a dozen years. With a too short, several month adventure in the Caribbean, I returned to Calif. and ended up with a job in the semi-conductor industry thanks to the old chief engineer at KZAP, that ended up in charge of the final test department for an equipment manufacturer. A few years later I moved on to working at a couple of semiconductor manufacturers that had purchased equipment with which I was far too intimate.

So then it was 12 years of a serious career, working in class 1 cleanrooms, but with excessive stress and no fun finally sent me back home to northern California, where I again have to offer deep thanks and graditude to my old friend, Paul Paterson, suggested that I check out KVMR's web site and viola my new home became Nevada City.