Jim Lounsbury also hosted one of the last shows with Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens, in Kenosha, Wisconsin on January 24, 1959, on the Winter Dance Party tour. Later in his career, he became well known as a radio news journalist, ending his career as the national news anchor for UPI Radio News. Lived in Skokie, IL in the early 60's. Daughter: Debbie. Lounsbury retired to Tucson, Arizona in the early 1980s. He and Helen Mason, whom he described as his "biggest fan", traveled around the Southwest in Jim's Cessna 182 airplane which he piloted. Jim occasionally wrote for
Ritchie Valens In Concert at Pacoima Jr. High was taped using a small portable tape recorder. After Valens' untimely death on February 3, 1959, numerous Ritchie Valens Fan Clubs were formed all over the nation. By late 1960, with no further records released since the "Ritchie" album a year before, his manager Robert Keane received letters en masse from fan club members who were hoping there were more of Valens' songs to be released. Keane responded by obtaining the tape of four songs from the Pacoima Junior High show and pressing it to record. To fill the "live" side of the album, an early demo of "Come On,