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Ken Squier, an American broadcasting legend and a beloved champion of Vermont, died on Nov. 15, following a quick sickness. Squier, who spent most of his life in Waterbury and Stowe, was 88 years previous.
In January 2018, Squier grew to become the first journalist inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, a recognition of his lifetime achievement as a broadcaster with CBS and TBS and because the founding father of Motor Racing Community. NASCAR’s annual honor for media excellence, the Squier-Hall Award, is known as for Squier and radio broadcaster Barney Corridor.
“It was his golden voice that took NASCAR to a nationwide viewers thirsting for dwell protection, giving his insider’s view of what he famously described as ‘frequent males doing unusual issues,’” the NASCAR Corridor of Fame stated of Squier.
He was greatest identified to Vermonters because the proprietor of WDEV Radio, the 92-year-old unbiased community, and the founding father of Thunder Highway Speedbowl, the race observe that he constructed on a hilltop in Barre in 1960. For some six many years, Squier hosted a twice-daily sports activities present and a weekly program, Music to Go to the Dump By, with WDEV broadcaster Jack Donovan.
“I’m the host, and he continues to deal with me just like the custodian,” Squier facetiously complained about Donovan, in a 2020 interview with me on The Vermont Conversation, the podcast and radio present produced by VTDigger and aired on WDEV. “He’s a horrible human being,” Squier stated of Donovan, using his highest praise. His dry wit was his trademark.
Squier was a renaissance man. He was an avid reader of historical past and a lover of classical music. He served as chair of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and launched WCVT, initially a classical music station that now broadcasts traditional rock. He cherished canine, particularly Buster, a border collie who Squier known as co-host of Music to Go to the Dump By.
Squier traveled the world as a TV sports activities broadcaster, overlaying all the pieces from NASCAR to Olympic velocity skating (“It’s identical to automotive racing. All of them crash coming across the turns,” he informed me).
However once I requested Squier in 2020 what he hoped his legacy can be, he replied shortly, “WDEV. I really like all the pieces about this radio.”
Gov. Phil Scott, a lifelong buddy and a racer at Thunder Highway, stated in an announcement Thursday that many would bear in mind Squier for his contributions to broadcasting and racing.
“However for me, what I’ll bear in mind most was his friendship and deep devotion to his neighborhood, which was the complete state,” Scott stated. “Ken was at all times in search of alternatives to provide again and assist these in want. He instilled these values because the spine of Radio Vermont, which has been a vital a part of the material of Vermont since its creation — at all times discovering new methods to help increasingly Vermonters.”
The governor continued, “From the sales space, he typically described these racing as ‘frequent males doing unusual issues.’ However in actuality he was describing himself — as a result of Ken was certainly a quite common man who did extraordinary issues.”
From Vermont to the World and Again
Kenley Dean Squier was born on April 10, 1935, in Waterbury. His father, Lloyd, owned and operated WDEV, based in 1931. At age 14, Ken Squier introduced his first inventory automotive race from the again of a flatbed truck at a dust race observe in Morrisville. It was the seed for a lifetime of journey and repair.
After graduating from Boston College, Squier returned to Vermont and, at age 25, opened Thunder Highway, a quarter-mile oval racetrack that he co-owned with Tom Curley. Squier offered the observe in 2017.
In 1970, Squier co-founded Motor Racing Community and was its lead radio announcer all through the Seventies. In 1973, Squier joined CBS Sports activities. In a transfer that reworked motor sports activities, Squier persuaded CBS to broadcast the 1979 Daytona 500, the primary dwell flag-to-flag nationwide protection of a automotive race. The race led to a crash and a fistfight between race leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison, as third place driver Richard Petty raced to victory. Squier called the finish blow-by-blow.
“The tempers, overflowing. They’re offended. They know they’ve misplaced. And what a bitter defeat,” Squier narrated excitedly for a rapt nationwide viewers.
“Absent Ken Squier, it could have taken this sport most likely one other decade to seek out its manner onto nationwide tv and radio,” stated Mike Pleasure, FOX Sports activities’ NASCAR announcer.
Winston Kelley, government director of the NASCAR Corridor of Fame, informed me, “Ken is arguably the perfect storyteller in our sport’s historical past. He would discuss with individuals. When he was broadcasting, it was like he was sitting beside you on the sofa.”
Richard Petty, a NASCAR Corridor of Fame driver and buddy, stated of Squier, “He knew everybody in racing personally, that’s why it was straightforward for him to commentate. He was a individuals individual.”
Squier was beneficiant as a mentor. “Ken’s best legacy is the variety of individuals he mentored, guided and opened doorways for over time,” stated Dave Moody, a former Thunder Highway announcer who’s now a lead announcer on Motor Racing Community.
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