BREAKFAST STEAK FOR BIG STEVE
By VINCE LEONARD

Grown-Up Voice, Vocabulary
     Big Steve Rizen, KQV's 11-3 daily man, is true Texan all the way.
     He showed up at Stouffer's looking like Hoss Cartwright and ordered steak for breakfast.
     Have you ever been mistaken for Hoss?
     "Many times, especially when I wear a Hoss-type hat," he answered.
     Rizen says he uses a grown-up voice and grown-up vocabulary for his mid-day show which caters to the housewife.
     "I enjoy the mental push of radio," he said. "I enjoy it because I feel I can do something better every two and a half minutes. I feel like a man enjoying a toy which might be taken away from him at any minute. And because I enjoy it, I feel the listener enjoys it too."
     Big Steve is six feet tall and weighs 265 pounds. He's 28 and marries and says he gets "kitchen clearance" once in a while to get out with the boys.
     He played high school football but broke his ankle on the third day of practice with the Texas A&M freshmen. On stage at college, he played "stefano" in Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
     He gave up electrical engineering - hunting oil in the Gulf of Mexico - to spin records.
     He loves radio - adult radio, he stresses.

Steve says one of his biggest moments in Pittsburgh was the night KQV introduced the Beatles on stage at the Civic Arena (Sept 14, 1964). It is said that Ringo's only memory of the Pittsburgh appearance was the big guy in the cowboy hat (Big Steve).

In September of 1965, KQV puts up Billboards promoting Big Steve Rizen.  Mustaches were painted on Steve.  A lucky listener won $1,000 by guessing who painted the mustaches on Big Steve.

Also in September of 1965, Steve Rizen became the host of a new TV game show, WIIC-TV, Channel 11's Give It A Whirl.

On July 31, 1967, Steve left KQV for WJAS.

In 1989, Steve went back to school and became a teacher. Steve says, "For the last eight years I have been teaching algebra, geometry, trig, and calculus, high-end physics and chemistry here in Houston schools.  It turns out I'm rather gud att it.  (But I doughn't spel all tht gud.)  I'm best in physics because it uses all that other stuff."

A kind and gentle man with a booming voice, Steve says, "I would like the visitors to your 14 KQV website to know there is life beyond broadcasting if your talents can take you there." As Big Steve used to sing, "I am happy in my work." He still is today.