Ed Ceries – Legacy
Legacy Inductee
Ed Ceries was a man who followed his dream. After working as an engineer for 20 years with the Pulitzer stations, KSD and KSD-TV, he invested his life savings and his considerable engineering efforts in building his own FM station, which he called KSHE.
He literally built some of the equipment himself, and on February 11, 1961, the station signed on from the basement of the Ceries’ home in suburban Crestwood. The station called itself “The Lady of FM,” and had a classical music format. For awhile, all the announcers were women.
Most of the basement was used for the station operations, with the Associated Press teletype installed next to the clothes washer. The record library room doubled as an administrative office where Mrs. Ceries also did her ironing.
Listener loyalty was strong. At times they would come to the station with copies of classical selections they thought were better than the ones being played on KSHE. Unfortunately for Ed Ceries, advertisers were not convinced FM radio, particularly classical music on FM radio, had much of an audience.
After a year-and-a-half, the format was adjusted to contain about 90% middle-of-the-road music and 10% classical, with nine daily news broadcasts. In 1964, the station was sold to Century Broadcasting.
