Veteran broadcaster Vernon Baker, who built large chains of both commercial and Religious non-commercial radio stations, has died at age 87. According to attorney Cary Tepper, Baker’s Positive Alternative Radio and related companies currently own and operate 46 AM and FM stations and 47 FM translators.
An obituary in the Roanoke Times said Baker was one of the youngest professors at Virginia Tech, still in his thirties, when he resigned in 1958 to devote full time to building radio stations, having already constructed WBCR-AM Blacksburg, VA in 1954, the first radio station in Montgomery County.
Vernon Baker was honored in 2004 for lifelong achievement by the Virginia Association of Broadcasters.
Baker’s wife of 64 years, Virginia, survives him. Funeral services will be Wednesday (7/15) in Blacksburg.
