Tom Scheppke

Tom Scheppke was always passionate about music and became an avid music collector at a young age. His interest in music included, of course, an interest in the on-air personalities he listened to on the radio. In 1975 Tom took that interest to Trinity University where he worked at the campus station, KRTU. Tom also started working on the Trinity Show that aired Sunday evenings on KTFM.

While working briefly at an adult contemporary station in Ohio. Tom was told “you need to be at a rock station”. It proved to be good advice. Tom headed back to San Antonio where he landed a part-time air shift at album-rock KTFM. In 1979 Tom took a full-time position KMAC-KISS to work with the legendary Lou Roney and “The Godfather of San Antonio Rock ‘n’ Roll” Joe Anthony. Somewhere along the way, Tom acquired the moniker “T-Bone” and it stuck.

T-Bone would help shape KISS to embrace the hair-band genre. He interviewed many of the heavy metal bands and aired cuts by the bands other rock stations didn’t play. Due to his relationships with the metal music industry, Tom would be instrumental in making KISS one of San Antonio’s most influential and ground-breaking music stations.

While at KISS T-Bone wore many hats. Disc Jockey, Production, Music Director, Assistant Program Director, and Program Director. Tom also created San Antonio’s first classic rock show, the popular KISS Klassics.

T-Bone worked successfully at KISS through three decades … then in 2000, he joined San Antonio’s original classic rock station, KZEP, where he would remain for 12 years. In 2009 the station held a concert named “Bonestock” in Tom’s honor for “Rockin’ the San Antonio Airwaves for 25 Years.” Tom also served as adjunct faculty in the Mass Communications department at both San Antonio College and the University of the Incarnate Word.

Tom retired from radio in 2014. Then in 2020 The T-Bone returned, bringing his lifelong passion for radio and music to San Antonio College’s KSYM where he hosts “T-Bone’s Prime Cuts.” True to his roots, T-Bone still plays the “free-form, deep album rock” that he played on San Antonio’s airwaves all those years ago.