George Rueppel – 2017
Brother George Rueppel, S.J., took the experimental wireless station at Saint Louis University, 9YK, and turned it into radio station WEW. 9YK had been broadcasting weather information by Morse Code since 1912, and Brother Rueppel was working as director of SLU’s meteorology department. When WEW was licensed for voice transmission in 1922, Rueppel headed the operation and did most of the initial announcing. He brought a Victrola into his makeshift studio and played music into the microphone to fill the time. His work will forever establish him as one of the founders of radio in St. Louis