Isn’t rock ’n’ roll supposed to be about rebellion? Defying authority? Sticking it to the man?

If that cliché still holds, it’s more than a little ironic that for the past 30 years, Colorado Springs’ KILO (94.3 FM) has been a rock of stability, with a cast of DJs and managers that has hardly changed in an industry where the broadcast booth usually resembles a revolving door. In three decades, the station has had two program directors, Rich Hawk and Ross Ford. Lou Mellini has run the station for nearly 26 years. The station seems to change buildings more frequently than it does DJs.

It all began in 1978. Charlie Brown, who now owns Charlie Brown’s Goodtime Travel, and the late Bob Telmosse bought a country station with an eye on flipping the format to rock.

At the time, it still looked as if the nation would switch to the metric system, so “kilo” seemed like a smart choice, Brown said. (Yeah, and the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up” was about a lawn mower.) OK, Brown admits, calling it “KILO” was also a naughty, tongue-incheek nod to the rock audience.

“Our first promotion, we gave away a kilo of Colombian . . . coffee,” Brown said.

At noon Feb. 10, 1978, KILO signed on. The first song?

“We spent a lot of time thinking about what would be the perfect first song and nobody can remember it now,” Brown said.

Whatever that song was, it must have made an impression. By the early 1980s, KILO was the highest-rated rock station in the entire country, regularly dominating the local ratings by huge margins.

KILO even showed up in the Denver ratings, something few Springs stations have managed.

“It was just ridiculous what the numbers were,” Mellini said.

Hawk, the program director, acquired a reputation and influence in the industry vastly out of proportion for KILO’s audience and Colorado Springs’ size.

“The thing about KILO is it’s so well-respected in the industry,” said Joel Navarro, who worked for KILO’s sister station KYZX (103.9 FM) as a DJ and later competed with KILO as program director for rock station KMOM.

“Everybody knows who KILO is,” Navarro said. “When I got into radio, my dream was to do a shift at KILO.”

Rock music is entirely dictated by the musical whims of young men. Staying on top of the trends is not an easy job.

“The rock format is constantly on death watch,” said Ford, the station’s program director and morning co-host. “Every year, I pick up a magazine that’s saying ‘Rock is dead.’ I don’t know if people just want it to go away or what.”

KILO’s toughest challenges came in the 1990s, as grunge raised up its flannel-shirted heroes, and then popular tastes swung to alternative rock. Hawk and KILO responded by skimming off the best, or at least the most rocksounding, artists from the new genres.

“When you’re riding along at that high rate, there’s always going to be ups and downs,” said Hawk, who retired a year and a half ago. “It was always, ‘Stay the format.’

Stay the format, that was our battle cry.”

“We never knee-jerked and flipped KILO,” Mellini said.

In the late ’90s, rock had a resurgence with bands such as Korn and Rage Against the Machine, and KILO’s fortunes rose once more.

To kick off its fourth decade, KILO plans to throw a few golden oldies into its music mix, along with a series of concerts at The Black Sheep and a big summer blowout.

Meanwhile, there’s always a new song, a new band, another guitar hero to play.

“Things change, but everything comes around,” Ford said. “Ozzy said it best: ‘You can’t kill rock ’n’ roll.’”

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0275 or awineke@gazette.com