By Nick Townsend

The Rev 89 Drivetime show has found someone to step up to the microphone following the departure of one of the station’s co-hosts.

 Alycia Harper, a senior majoring in mass communications at CSU-Pueblo, is taking over JC Urso’s spot in the studio. After JC Urso graduated in the fall of 2010, Mike Atencio, the station manager of Rev 89, needed to find someone to take his place on the show. After spending some time on it, he said he made the decision to give the job to Harper.

 Harper and her co-host John Dalton, also a senior majoring in mass communications, host the Drivetime show from 3 to 6 p.m. every weekday.

“Alycia’s always had talent, but I needed her to get more time in with a little bit more experience,” Atencio said. “John had approached me about possibly working with her and that was my thought too and then we went to her about doing the show.”

When Dalton knew he was going to have a new partner on Drivetime, Alycia was one of his top two choices to replace Urso, he said.

“I had a couple of choices in mind. One was my good buddy Sidekick Nick and Alycia was the other possibility,” Dalton said. “Those were my top two choices right there, then when Mike decided that Nick was going to be the sports director, Alycia seemed to be the perfect fit so the choice wasn’t that difficult.”

Harper, who has worked at Rev for over a year, said she wanted to do a different specialty show when she first started.

“Originally, I wanted my own hip-hop show on Rev 89,” Harper said. “I actually failed both classes that I needed to take to have my own show on Rev, which is programming and regulations of electronic media, and by the time I retook them and passed them Drivetime opened up and I figured it would be a better opportunity to get my name out there.”

There are courses a student must take in order to get on a specialty show, Atencio said. The first course is radio station operations 140, which every student must take if they want to work on the radio. They must also take the introduction to electronic media, regulations and programming class, he said, and they must also pass all these classes with at least a C.

 Another qualification students must do in order to get on a specialty show is declare mass communications as either their major or minor, Atencio said.

With Harper now on Drivetime, Dalton said it has taken him some time getting used to having Harper on the show instead of Urso. Dalton said he was partners with Urso for two semesters before he left.

“JC was a little bit more laid back than Alycia, whereas Alycia is a little bit more out there,” Dalton said. “JC and I took a little while to collaborate, as well as me and Alycia are doing right now. I feel Alycia’s more like the female version of me than any partner I’ve had prior to her.”

Harper is the third partner Dalton has had since he started working on Drivetime, and Dalton said she has been the easiest partner to fit in, despite having many good shows with his two previous partners, he said.

 As far as Harper being the female version of Dalton, she said she agrees with that and she has blended in nicely since joining Dalton on Drivetime.

“The first few days we kind of stepped on each other’s toes a little bit, like trying to talk over each other, but that’s kind of something that when you work with somebody else you get to know,” Harper said.

Both Dalton and Harper said they are excited about the partnership the two now have being on Drivetime together, as well as the interactions they have amongst their listeners.

“I look forward to craziness. I look forward to wacky antics and whole bunch of stuff,” Dalton said. “I also look forward to a lot of fun and I’m seriously thinking this is my last semester at Drivetime, so I want those that follow after to me to know what’s good, what’s going on and to entertain.”