10/3/2009 10:00:00 PM Days Past: Herb Jepko: Beloved talk show host's Prescott connection
J. Buchman/ Courtesy photo Herb Jepko poses in his radio control room in this undated photo.
Days Past is a weekly feature in the Courier, supplied by Sharlot Hall Museum volunteers, chronicling historic events in Prescott.
By DONNA HALPER Special to the Courier
Today's radio talk show hosts tend to be angry and confrontational. But in the 1960s and '70s, one of radio's most popular talkers was known for being polite, warm and courteous. His name was Herb Jepko and, while he became famous for his "Nitecaps" program from Salt Lake City, he spent his formative years in Prescott.
Herb was born in 1931 as William Parke, given up for adoption, adopted by Metro and Nellie Jepko of 340 N. Pleasant St. in Prescott and given the name Herbert Earl Jepko. Metro was originally a coal miner from Pennsylvania.
During WWI, he served in the army and was wounded in Europe. Although he recovered, he would periodically experience complications from those wounds, which led his doctors to suggest a warmer climate. They sent him to Fort Whipple to the U.S. Public Health Service Hospital (now the V.A. Hospital), where he spent two years in a plaster cast and braces.
When his health improved, he bought a few acres in Miller Valley and raised chickens and rabbits and had an orchard. Metro and Nellie had married in 1924 and adopted Herb in 1931. Unfortunately, the marriage was not a happy one, and having a new baby did not keep the family together. They were divorced; Nellie left town and Metro got custody of 4-year-old Herb.
The health problems, which had been stable for a while, recurred. He was in and out of the hospital and unable to care for his young son, which meant that Herb ended up in foster care. Herb would live with his dad when his health allowed and return to foster care when the health problems resurfaced.
Metro was unable to work steadily in Prescott. For a time in the mid-1930s, he was active in veterans' affairs and served as a Commander in the American Legion, but the persistent health problems made life difficult. He was determined to be a good father to Herb, who would later tell reporters that he thought of Metro as both a mom and a dad and respected how hard Metro had tried.
When WWII broke out, Metro was reasonably healthy again and he found work at an aviation training school in Glendale, which led to a Civil Service job as a warehouse supervisor at Williams Air Force Base in Chandler. According to city directories, Herb and Metro were living in north Phoenix in 1948.
Herb graduated from high school and thought about becoming a doctor, enrolling at Phoenix College. He later told an interviewer that he left school after two years because he ran out of money. The Korean War broke out and he was drafted into the Army, where he became involved in radio-TV operations, discovering he loved broadcasting.
After his discharge, he began working in radio full-time in Flagstaff, then Los Angeles, where he met and married Patsy Little Brown.
Herb and Patsy moved to Salt Lake City where Herb was a radio disc jockey on the evening shift. He would accept calls from listeners while the songs were on the air and realized there were people out there who just wanted to talk. He convinced station KSL to allow him to try a nighttime talk show, the first of its kind. The station, like all the others, had been signing off at midnight.
They gave him a trial period to prove it could work and he was on the air from midnight until 6 a.m. It lasted for nearly three decades!
When he first began his "Nitecaps" show in early 1964, Herb decided to create a program where no one would shout or be rude, and where contentious issues were totally off-limits.
Because he didn't have a mother around when growing up and his dad was often ill, he went on to create a radio "family" where he and his many listeners would chat about the simple things in life. And while a friendly, folksy talk show might not work today, for millions of listeners in the '60s and '70s, the Nitecaps show was a companion, a friend and a source of inspiration. It was also the first talk show to be syndicated nationally by satellite. And at the heart of the show's success was a kind and caring man named Herb Jepko, whose attitudes were shaped while growing up in Prescott.
Metro moved to Salt Lake City once Herb's radio career took off, and he worked with Herb's wife answering fan mail and making sure the monthly newsletter, "The Wick," got out. Metro died in 1971.
Herb died of liver disease in 1995. He was inducted into the Utah Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame posthumously in June 2003.
Dr. Joseph Buchman of the University of Utah has created a tribute website in Herb's memory at www.nitecaps.net.
Donna Halper, educator, media historian and radio consultant, has written four books and articles about the history of broadcasting.
This and other Days Past articles are available on Sharlot.org/archives and via RSS e-mail subscription.
The public is welcome to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact Scott Anderson at Sharlot Hall Museum Archives at 445-3122.
