KWSX was originally KXOB. In December 1946, founding company Valley Broadcasting Company was granted a construction permit to put a new AM station on the air in Stockton at 1280 with 1,000 watts, directional to the west at night. This new AM station would sign on in the spring of 1947 with the call sign KXOB, co-owned with KXOA in Sacramento and KXOC in Chico. VBC partners were: Lincoln Dellar, Executive Director, and Morton Sidley. KXOB's offices and studios were originally at 2013 Pacific Avenue in Stockton with the transmitter site at Beyer Lane and East Harding Way, northeast of Stockton. In the fall of 1950, studio facilities were moved to the Beyer Lane transmitter site, presumably as a cost-cutting measure. April 1952 saw KXOB's first change in ownership as radio and newspaper executive Clem John Randau bought KXOB from Lincoln Dellar for $200,000. The FCC approved the transaction on July 10, 1952. Clem and Beatrice Randau owned 55% of KXOB with other principals Sherrill Corwin, Ralph Stolkin, and Edward G. Burke, Jr., doing business asHotel Stockton Broadcasting. Mr. Randau also owned minority stock in New York radio station WNEW. Randau moved 1280 to its heritage, legendary storefront location at the northeast corner of El Dorado Street and Weber Avenue—The Hotel Stockton. The station would occupy this highly visible, landmark address within sight of the head of the Stockton Channel for over 40 years. Randau's ownership of KXOB did not last long, however. On September 9, 1953, the FCC approved the sale of KXOB to 36-year-old Joseph Gamble, in whose family the station would remain into the 1990s. Gamble's brother-in-law and former newspaper reporter, Ort J. Lofthus, then-Sales Manager of KCMJ, Palm Springs, another of Gamble's stations, was brought to Stockton to head KXOB as General Manager.
As KJOY
Sometime between the fall of 1953 and the fall of 1956, KXOB became KJOY, with the company's DBA changing, in turn, to "KJOY, Inc." This DBA did not last long, either; on October 30, 1956, the DBA became "Joseph Gamble Stations, Inc." On November 29, 1963, tragedy befell KJOY and the Gamble family: owner Joseph, age 46, suffered a fatal heart attack at KJOY's Hotel Stockton offices. GM Ort Lofthus was elected president of Joseph Gamble Stations. In February 1968, Joseph Gamble Stations requested the KJAX callsign for KJOY's new FM sister station at 99.3 MHz. This would be the 2nd time Gamble Stations would have this call sign: the first being 1150 KJAX in Santa Rosa in 1958. When Gamble Stations sold the 1150 license in 1963, the new owners changed the call letters to KPLS. In KJOY's early years, some notable personalities included such names as Mort Cooper, Jim Tracewell, Ken Wayne, Ron Reynolds, Ted Payne, Denny Kirwan and Rick Cimino, with Spencer Tyler and Jerry Simpson in the KJOY News Department. Airing in the early and mid-1960s would be names such as Terry Rose, Ken Minyard and Mac MacGregor, then later still, Don Imus, Mike Wynn, Roy Williams, Dave Bowling, David Allan Kraham, Al "the Roadrunner" Heathman, Pat Kelley, Bill Bishofberger, Johnny Milford, John Willyard, Chrys Fasoli, Sheilah Bowman, Bill Daniels, Steve Young, Jerry Fuentes, Steve Blum as News Director, Bob Tilden, Scott Thomas, Terry Nelson, et al.
