Legendary Texas communications engineering pro John Furr has passed away at age 68 after a brief illness. He opened his own shop after working with Clear Channel before the company name was regularly preceded by the words “radio giant.”
Here is a remembrance along with service details from veteran broadcaster John Barger:
Long-time Texas radio engineering giant, John Furr died in San Antonio, Tuesday (8/21/12) following a brief illness. He was 68.
John began his association with commercial broadcasting as an intern at KUNO Corpus Christi. Following his graduation from Stephen F. Austin University in Nacogdoches, he worked at number of Texas stations including KOKE Austin, and KTSA and KITE in San Antonio.
In 1979 he became group engineering chief for Clear Channel Communications.
Following a ten-year career with Clear Channel, he opened his own independent engineering firm and went on to up-grade or improve the facilities of over 100 broadcast stations in Texas, employing proprietary software he developed, which has since become a standard for the broadcast engineering industry.
His radio partnership interests included KONO, KBBT, KCOR-FM and KRIO in San Antonio, and at the time of his death he was licensee of KBNU-FM in Uvalde, and KBLT-FM in Leakey.
In 2011 he was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.
He is survived by his wife, Paula, his daughter Amanda, and grandson Benjamin.
A memorial services will be held Saturday at 10am in the South Hall of Oak Hills Church, 19595 I-10 West in San Antonio. In lieu of flowers, the family has suggested contributions in his memory to the mission foundation John established to help fund Christian self-reliance projects in El Salvador and Haiti, The Hand-In-Hand Foundation, 2312 Lockhill-Selma, Suite 238, San Antonio, TX, 78230.
I had the pleasure of working with John Furr as we both were there in the early days of what would become Clear Channel Communications. I learned a lot from John and wish his family well.
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