DOVER HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF '69

THEN & NOW
———————————————
KEN OLLWEILER
Contact info:
Phone - (310) 995-3639 (cell)
E-mail - kenkurtis@aol.com

1969	2009

It’s been an interesting 40 years to say the least. Some things in my life have gone as I thought they would, others aspects not. But it’s always been interesting and I’m looking forward to the next 40 as well. (I plan to make it at least to 100.) You may recall in high school I was active both in theater (Act One Players) and politics (Student Government Treasurer my senior year). Both of those things have been, and still are, a big part of my life.

After DHS, I went to Northwestern University and got involved in the campus radio station (WNUR). I ended up doing radio all of my four years there which included co-ordinating round-the-clock coverage of the 1970 student strike in reaction to Kent State, covering the first Earth Day, and doing all things radio. I was also active in student politics, eventually being elected Speaker of the ASG Forum and leading a second student strike in 1972. Never a dull moment.

After college, I decided that I really liked radio and pursued that after I graduated, working for numerous stations as Program Director and disc jockey over the next eight years. (This is also when I started using “Ken Kurtis” as a stage name since “Ken Ollweiler” sounds very weird when you say it on-air.) I had stints in Fort Pierce, Florida (WIRA-AM/WOVV-FM); Trenton, New Jersey (WBUD-AM); Vidalia, Georgia (WVOP-AM/98Q-FM); Tulsa, Oklahoma (KAKC-AM); New York City, New York (99X-FM); and Richmond, Virginia (WLEE-AM). It was all top 40 radio and it was always fun. I usually did the afternoon shift. If you want to hear some airchecks from that period, they’re on my personal website (http://www.kenkurtis.com/Radio%20days%20page.htmhttp://www.kenkurtis.com/Radio days page.htm).

In Richmond, I segued into doing television, starting with the Pledge Drives for the local PBS station WCVE. Little did I know what effect that would have on me as I ended up doing numerous shows (and Pledge Drives) for WCVE for the next few years, including my first shot at game-show hosting on a show called Battle of the Brains. I really liked doing TV and was sort of tired of getting fired from radio stations and thought I’d pretty much done what I could do in Richmond.

So in 1981 I sold my house, packed up my stuff, and moved to Los Angeles. I was very lucky in that I was hired to do a small part (ironically on WKRP in Cincinnati) my very first week in town. I also hooked up with the L.A. PBS station, KCET, and became their main host for their Pledge Drives for 20 years.

During my time in L.A. I’ve also been the weekend weatherman for KABC-TV, appeared for about five years on General Hospital (usually as a nameless reporter), spent another five years doing the same thing on Days of Our Lives, have done numerous commercials and infomercials, and even appeared in two movies. I’ve also had a shot at hosting a number of game-show projects, but nothing that’s made it on the air (yet).

When I was in Richmond, as part of a radio station promotion in 1978, I learned how to scuba dive. I loved it. Two years later, I became a NAUI Scuba Instructor. That became another life-changing moment. (Amazing how these things happen to you without you realizing it.)

When I came to L.A. I started teaching scuba for a number of dive shops, and I ended up buying one of them in 1988 (Reef Seekers in Beverly Hills). I still own it (although we closed our retail storefront at the end of 2006) and am still very active in the dive community both locally and nationally.

We’ve got a website you can check out (www.reefseekers.com). Plus I’ve become a fairly good underwater photographer and now write for a number of local and national scuba publications. On top of that I run a yearly benefit for the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber that’s turned into the largest single-day scuba charity event in the United States (www.chamberday.org). And if all of that didn’t take up enough time, every week I also volunteer as a diver at the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. (Yes, I’m still an over-achiever.)

So I stay pretty busy. Don’t do as much acting as I used to but hope to turn that around in 2009. (You can view some of those efforts at www.kenkurtis.com.) My diving activities now involve running local trips and taking our divers on 3-5 foreign trips each year. In the past, I’ve been to such places as Bonaire, Palau, Maldives, Indonesia, Australia, Bahamas, Midway Island, Hawaii, and a whole lot more. In 2009 it’s Bonaire in May and the Sea of Cortez in October. (Plus I’m squeezing in a trip to Shanghai, China, in July for a total solar eclipse.) If you’re interested in anything marine or underwater, you can check out the pictures and read the trip reports here: Ken's pix & trip reports.

I’ll cap it all off with one of the more unusual things in my life. With all the scuba stuff I do (a lot of which focuses on diving safety), I’ve become the Forensic Consultant for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office. It means that if there’s a scuba diving fatality in L.A. County (we average about 5 per year), I do a test on the equipment and write up an accident analysis. Fascinating stuff, actually.

I love living in L.A. and am either diving, acting, or traveling (or playing golf). I haven’t become the big star I thought I would be but I’m well-known locally and I like to think that I do some important work and give back to the community. (I also MC the annual Revlon Run-Walk, a breast cancer benefit, which attracts about 50,000 each year.). And, I’m really looking forward to the DHS 40th reunion and re-connecting with many of you. So hopefully, I’ll be seeing you on the 8th of August.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. There’s a prize for making it all the way to the bottom. Let me know if you want to collect.