Ken Jones, founder of KPBS, the first radio station licensed to a California State University campus in 1960, died Friday at the age of 90, the station announced today.

Jones was a speech communications professor at what in the 1950s was called San Diego State College. In September of 1960, he launched KEBS, a five-days-a-week educational radio station that broadcast for two-and-a-half hours a day.

Born in 1919 in Pittsburgh, Jones was initiated into the world of the airwaves as an Army radio officer during World War II. He studied at Northwestern University, and received a master’s degree from Stanford University before moving to San Diego in 1948, according to a KPBS press release.

Jones is survived by his wife, Marian, four sons and four grandchildren.

ADRIAN FLORIDO

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