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Steve Kasper
- Thread starter Kent
- Start date
I just saw Russ Kaspar and Vern Kaspar associated with Kaspar broadcasting nothing of Steve kaspar is that who you are referring to?
Steve Kaspar was one of Vern and Lillian's sons, as are/were Russ and Vic. I found an "X" account under Steve Kaspar which indeed indicates him as the owner of the Missouri stations. From my time there, I seem to recall Steve working for other radio stations. With the spinoff of WSHW, Frankfort, last I knew Russ was running WILO, it's translators and online outlets in Frankfort.
As gr8 mentions, Steve owned KWRE and KFAV. I thought he owned WILO/WSHW, too, but it's possible his brother got those properties after Vern died.
I’m told Steve's death was sudden and unexpected. He was 71 and seemed in decent health for someone his age.
KWRE was my first radio job, in 1976. I didn't know Steve; Vern and his local manager, John McMasters (who was excellent), were running the show. Vern was based in Indiana but came to Warrenton fairly often, usually to fix things, since he was an engineer and did most of his own engineering. I think Steve was the one who got the company into FM. As a 19-year-old full of ideas and stuff, I broached the topic of FM with Vern, since the 103.9 channel was open in Montgomery City, to the west of Warrenton. Let's just say Vern had no interest whatsoever at the time. KWRE was doing well, had a good signal, though the station sounded muddy because the equipment was so old, and Vern kept a close eye on expenses. Most of the equipment was frozen in time from 1964, when Vern bought KWRE. The traffic coordinator at the station, "Tooter" (I never did know her actual name), told me that Vern bought the station from a local lawyer who had fallen into ill health and needed to sell the property. The Kaspars' lucky break was having a station in an area where the population started booming in the 1980s and 1990s as the St. Louis metropolitan area spread to the northwest along I-70.
I don't know how everything got divvied up after Vern died (he made it to age 95). When I was there, 1983-1985, Russ was the sales manager and always on-site. Vern would constantly harass us on the phone.
Which I'm sure you had to answer by starting, "Good advertising, WILO". We had to answer with "Good advertising, KWRE", of course!
I found Vern's obituary online from a Lafayette, Indiana newspaper. It indicates that Steve was living in Warrenton, Russ in Frankfort, and Vic in North Carolina.
I did not know that Vern was originally from Iowa, and had been a manager at WOI-TV when it was the only TV station in Iowa! His engineering degree was from what's now Iowa State University. The FCC's history card on WILO indicates he bought that station in 1959.
From the Indiana perspective, I don't know when WILO-FM came on the air, but the upgrade to 50000 watts and relocation of the transmitter to the intersection of Indiana 29 and 26, not far from Kokomo, was paid for for in order to move WSMJ, Greenfield,which became WIKS and now WZPL, closer to Indianapolis. (This of course precluded WSHW from ever moving into the Indy market). During the original translator gold rush, Vern licensed a bunch of them, many of which he sold (the 107.5 half of the former WFNI programming was one of his).
My former father-in-law worked for Vern in the late 60s and returned after I started there in 1984.
Someone reached out after I mentioned it on Facebook and said Steve was also involved with KFNS-FM 100.7 after 590 sold it.
I read that same obit just now. I sorta remember saying something like "Good advertising" but of course it would have included Shine 99, which was marketed regionally and somewhat de-emphasized Frankfort in favor of Kokomo, and he had a big thing for selling the FM in Logansport. I remember on the AM we said "WILO Regional Radio", a catch phrase that, after my brief sojourn to the Hannibal/Quincy market, I found out was a popular catch phrase for small Missouri stations, where the ground conductivity made AM signals go on forever. When I was at WILO/WSHW, the AM format was a hodge-podge of news, farm, "Party Line", WILO Want Ads, and a bunch of random records, hit or non-hit, from the 50s to present. Shine 99 was Century 21 A/C reels.
Fun-fact: I got hired there after almost getting hired at WERK, Muncie. The opening didn't materialize there and I guess PD Steve Dunham called some other stations to ask about applicants they couldn't use, and that's how I was referred. I was hired over the phone, but when I arrived no one there at the time knew I was coming.
I don't remember ever saying "regional radio" on the air at KWRE, but here's the rate card from 1977 where that term is used.
I would credit Jerrell Shepherd for use of the "regional radio" phrase, which he used mainly on his FM stations (Moberly, Bethany, Farmington, etc.). Vern didn't structure KWRE the way Shepherd structured KWIX/KRES, though, and didn't have nearly as much news/informational programming. Country music plus local service features was mostly what the programming was about. I had to learn how to, at least, tolerate country music but, fortunately, this was around the time the Austin music scene was becoming prominent, so Willie and Waylon helped keep me sane. Probably also helped that my dad was a huge country-music fan.
If KWRE did call itself "regional" on the air, it would have been telling the truth. That signal got out, thanks to the low frequency. I regularly had callers from across the Mississippi River in Illinois, for example. Vern's other lucky break was having a radio station in a part of the state where relatively few of the small towns had stations. Bowling Green and Union were the only two other non-suburban cities in the region with radio stations, and they had much more limited coverage. So KWRE wasn't just the local station for Warrenton and Warren County, it also served as the local station for western St. Charles County, Troy and Lincoln County, Montgomery County, and across the Missouri River in Hermann. You could carry the station all the way on I-70 to Columbia, but Vern didn't sell any farther west than Montgomery County. To the east, St. Charles County was rapidly becoming a suburb of St. Louis, but he was able to make some inroads there. When KIRL in St. Charles went to country music in 1978, KWRE had some competition but KIRL's format lasted just a little more than a year.
Contrary to what the rate card might imply, UPI audio newscasts were not carried on the station. They were available via Missourinet/Brownfield, but KWRE took only the Brownfield farm programming. TOH news was rip-and-read by the DJ on shift except for morning drive. On occasion, I would substitute for the news director for morning drive. I at least managed to rewrite some of the copy to tone down UPI's sensationalism a little bit.
Here's a KWRE QSL card blank that I found. The line drawing is of the first Missouri state capitol, which was in St. Charles.
Very interesting! Yes I could get KWRE in Quincy/Hannibal.
Vern was a lot more hands-on in Frankfort, and was particular about how news was written. Yes, there was just a touch of Republican bias (this was before the days of GOP Supermajorities). He always insisted that after an actually played, we repeated who the speaker was "Senator Richard Lugar". I guess I can't completely argue against that. We did carry UPI at the top of most hours (the first 2 minutes) and the minute fill at the bottom of the hour. 1pm was The Word from Unity. We had regular farm reports (for a time we had a Farm Director) but didn't carry Harry Martin or other farm network. We DID carry a short segment with Captain Stubby and Chuck Bill, of pre-top 40 WLS fame. They had retired to Indiana and were syndicated to a handful of stations.
On Shine 99, they still carried a lot of farm, and drive-time news. We had a PD briefly who convinced Vern to daypart some of the Century 21 reels, adding in the Z format reels at night. He was a buffer between Vern and the rest of us for awhile.
As I was getting ready to leave, the AM was in the process of being automated with Concept's Country format, which came with synched voice tracks. Most of the service elements were crammed into mornings.
It was only two years but seemed like a lifetime.
Vern was a lot more hands-on in Frankfort, and was particular about how news was written. Yes, there was just a touch of Republican bias (this was before the days of GOP Supermajorities). He always insisted that after an actually played, we repeated who the speaker was "Senator Richard Lugar". I guess I can't completely argue against that. We did carry UPI at the top of most hours (the first 2 minutes) and the minute fill at the bottom of the hour. 1pm was The Word from Unity. We had regular farm reports (for a time we had a Farm Director) but didn't carry Harry Martin or other farm network. We DID carry a short segment with Captain Stubby and Chuck Bill, of pre-top 40 WLS fame. They had retired to Indiana and were syndicated to a handful of stations.
On Shine 99, they still carried a lot of farm, and drive-time news. We had a PD briefly who convinced Vern to daypart some of the Century 21 reels, adding in the Z format reels at night. He was a buffer between Vern and the rest of us for awhile.
As I was getting ready to leave, the AM was in the process of being automated with Concept's Country format, which came with synched voice tracks. Most of the service elements were crammed into mornings.
It was only two years but seemed like a lifetime.
For those interested, here's the obituary from the funeral home: Steve Kaspar Obituary (1953-2024) | Wentzville, MO
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