Longtime Havre broadcaster John Mosher dies

Local radio broadcaster John Mosher, 64, died in Great Falls on Friday of complications from surgery, but his wife said he will not be forgotten.

"He will stay alive because people will remember him for the good he did in the community," Faye Mosher said today.

David Leeds, John Mosher's partner in New Media Broadcasting, said doing good for the community was natural for Mosher.

"John was a true professional. His interests were always what were best for the community and the radio station," Leeds said. "Whenever it came down to sticky questions, we would always ask ourselves that question."

He began working for station owners Stan Stephens and Lyle Leeds when he and Faye moved to Havre in 1962. Mosher bought into the Havre broadcasting company which consisted of KOJM-AM radio in 1972.

"They realized if they didn't sell him a piece of it, someone was going to pick him up," Faye Mosher said.

John Mosher was born in Janesville, Wis., in 1938. He attended schools in Janesville, went to college in Whitewater, Wis., and attended the Browne Institute of Broadcasting in Minneapolis. He was a member of the Wisconsin Air National Guard.

After working in radio in St. Joseph, Mo., and Topeka, Kan., he married Faye Hulsey in Topeka and they moved to Havre that year.

"We were going to stay here two years, but we began trout fishing and hunting," Faye Mosher said.

Both of the Moshers were avid fly-fishers.

"That was his one love after the radio station," she said, adding that one of his favorite sayings was, "A bad day of fishing is better than a good day of working."

Mosher worked on expanding the company over the years he was there. He was heavily involved in starting KPQX-FM, the company's country western station, in 1974.

"John knew country western was a moneymaker in this region," Faye Mosher said.

He was also instrumental in bringing David Leeds back to Havre radio, said Leeds, who had worked for his father, Lyle, and Stephens from 1970-1972. David Leeds had started law school on the West Coast and then realized he didn't want to go into a career in law. Mosher heard he was having second thoughts.

"He called me up and said, Get your fanny back here. We need you,'" Leeds said.

Leeds and Mosher began buying out Lyle Leeds' shares in the business in 1985. That was the same year the partners bought out Stephens' shares. Stephens went on to serve as governor of Montana from 1989 to 1993.

When Lyle Leeds died in 1987, the two partners bought the rest of his share from his estate.

They continued to expand the business, buying KRYK-FM in Chinook in 1997.

Her husband's personality had many sides, Faye Mosher said.

"He was funny. He saw the positive side of life. He was not negative at all. He took adversity right in stride and found a solution for the problem," she said.

He was kind, considerate, generous and compassionate, she said.

"He had a German's stubbornness but a willingness to listen," she said. "He made friends just by walking into the room."

And Mosher, who had planned to retire next spring, was a good businessman, she said. The last book he read was "Waging Business Warfare" by David J. Rogers, a book about using lessons from military masters to achieve corporate superiority.

"And that just about sums it up for him," she said.