Peter Boyles on His Surprising Return to KNUS Radio

On April 1, Peter Boyles helmed what was advertised as his final radio show for KNUS, at 710 AM, following an on-air health event that convinced him it was time to hang up his microphone for good — and in remarks made in the days prior to that broadcast, he poured cold water on the prospect of a part-time comeback down the line. "I don't want to do fill-in work or work on the weekends," he stressed.

Now, however, Boyles is planning to return to the airwaves on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, with his debut in the slot tentatively scheduled for September 10.

What changed? Two things: an improvement in his medical prognosis and intense irritation over not having enough to do.

"I was so bored with retirement," Boyles says. "I can't tell you how bored I was."

Meanwhile, KNUS has announced that former 18th Judicial District DA George Brauchler, a past candidate for Colorado governor and attorney general who's been filling Boyles's old weekday-morning drive-time slot for the outlet for the past few months, is taking over the gig on a permanent basis.

Boyles had been a mainstay on the Denver radio dial for around fifty years, with stints at signals such as KHOW preceding his jump to KNUS in 2013. Then something went wrong shortly before 8 a.m. on March 10. "I all of a sudden started speaking in tongues, like I was looking to grab a copperhead and dance down the hall," he told Westword at the time of his retirement announcement. "Everyone must have thought I was having a religious experience."

Boyles was rushed to the Medical Center of Aurora, and "I went through a brain scan and they put me through that tube; I went into the tunnel," he said. "I had all of these physical tests, and afterward, the doctor told me there was no evidence I'd had a stroke, but I'd probably had a TIA" — a transient ischemic attack, often referred to as a mini-stroke.

Although doctors told him he'd suffered no permanent damage from the TIA, Boyles found himself reflecting on the event. "I'd been thinking about quitting," he noted. "Maybe that was the universe's way of saying, 'That's enough.'"

This decision didn't spell the end of Boyles's association with KNUS, however. Since the April 1 broadcast, Boyles has recorded intermittent editorials for the station and conducted long-form interviews on YouTube branded as The Shoot With Peter Boyles. But these sidelines weren't nearly enough to keep Boyles busy, especially after a team of physicians put him on the right medical track.

"My heart just gets out of rhythm, and that created a blood clot that shot up the side of my head," he explains. "That's what happened, and I was initially fearful of another one happening. But I have a great cardiologist, Dr. Nelson Prager, and a team of young neurologists at a place called Blue Sky Neurology, and they put me on this drug called Xarelto, which is a blood thinner. They told me, 'Take this drug and control your stress and we'll never see you again.'"

As his confidence in his condition grew, Boyles says he realized why he was having so many problems winding down his career: "I never really was able to prepare for retirement. I just kind of one day quit radio. I didn't have a glide path, and I knew I missed it so much. But I didn't want to work five-to-nine Monday through Friday."

Hence, KNUS's decision to officially put Brauchler in that time period. In a statement released today, August 23, Brauchler says: "I'm excited to be a regular part of the 710 KNUS team. With so much happening in Denver and our state, it's thrilling to interact every day with our listeners on the issues."

Of course, Boyles longs to weigh in on such subjects, too, and the Saturday show will give him an opportunity to do so. "One reason to come back is to make the right people angry," he says. "I've been watching the lies of Donald Trump, watching the insanity of Tina Peters. A mayor's race is about to start, the November elections are pending. How can you sit there and watch?"

His answer to that rhetorical question: "You can't."

As Boyles notes, the radio business is widely portrayed as yesterday's news, even though a recent study found that 88 percent of the American public still tunes in to the medium every week. "I've seen people wipe their feet on the radio business in the last couple of years, and we're in trouble," he concedes, citing the $45.2 million judgment against vile huckster Alex Jones earlier this month as one reason why. "But I still believe in radio, and I still believe it's needed, because I've never seen anything quite as crazy as what we're going through right now."

He adds: "The themes of the show are going to remain the same. You're not trying to be light, you're not trying to be loved, but you're not trying to be hated, either. You're trying to tell the truth — and I can't wait to get back in the ring."