Vern Kaspar, owner of the KWRE and KFAV radio station in Warrenton, passed away Jan. 11.Kaspar was owner and president of Kaspar Broadcasting. He was 95 years old, and died from complications from diabetes in Frankfort, Ind.Born in 1922 in Sioux City, Iowa, Kaspar obtained his first FCC license at the age of 13 as an amateur radio operator, building and operating his own amateur radio station. Back in the days before Teletype news was available, he would copy Morse code at 33 words per minute to obtain national and international news for local radio stations.A graduate of Iowa State University, he had degrees in physics and electrical engineering.After serving in the Navy in World War II and stints at Princeton and Columbia University, he became an executive for WOI-TV, the first TV station in Iowa.In 1959, as a minority partner in a radio station in Nebraska, he decided he’d like to own one of his own and he and his wife Lillian looked at Frankfort, Ind., Colorado and Minnesota. He opted for Indiana where he purchased WILO-AM and WHSW-FM.In the 1961, he purchased KWRE-AM in Warrenton and in 1991 he signed on KFAV-FM.In 2004, Kaspar was inducted into the Indiana Broadcast Hall of Fame.Kaspar was also a world traveler having visited more than 60 countries and interviewing a number of world leaders.Kaspar is survived by his three sons, Steven of Warrenton, Russell of Frankfort, Ind., and Victor of North Carolina.

Vern Kaspar