Times Argus: Thunder Road founder, WDEV owner Ken Squier dies at age 88
Thunder Road owner Ken Squier interviews NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Clint Bowyer. Then-Gov. Peter Shumlin is behind Squier to the right. File photo by Gordon Miller
BARRE — Vermont broadcaster and NASCAR Hall of Famer Kenley “Ken” Squier died Wednesday evening, leaving behind legacies in the radio booth and in U.S. auto racing. He was 88.
Across the state and beyond, Squier was remembered Thursday as the voice behind many sporting events, as a shrewd business owner and as a vocal advocate for local news and Vermont traditions.
Squier was iconic in central Vermont. He was the founder of Barre’s Thunder Road. He was also the owner of WDEV — the Radio Vermont Group — that, with its folksy, unique programming, has kept its live shows and local news and sports coverage when other Vermont radio stations have fallen to more canned formats and out-of-state ownership.
Born on April 10, 1935, Squier was immediately involved in the radio business with the family owned and operated WDEV in Waterbury. Squier, a well-known Boston University journalism graduate, was later elevated to CEO and owner of the Radio Vermont Group in 1979 after the death of his father, Lloyd Squier, who had helped put the station on the air in 1931.
Following his parents’ love of horse racing, Squier found auto racing at New England fairgrounds and up-and-coming backyard dirt tracks to be more exciting.
According to a news release issued by Thunder Road, Squier “started his legendary lap-by-lap commentating career calling those jalopy races on the back of log trucks at these fly-by-night ovals before moving up to more legitimate race tracks like Colchester’s Mallet’s Bay Raceway and Waterford’s Northeastern Speedway.”
That love of racing came to define itself permanently in central Vermont.
Ken Squier on the call in victory lane during the first seasons of Thunder Road International Speedbowl, a nationally recognized short track that he founded in 1960. American-Canadian Tour file photo courtesy of Thunder Road
Squier chose and purchased a plot of farmland at the end of Fisher Road in Barre Town to build Thunder Road International Speedbowl, opening to a capacity crowd in June 1960. In the early days of coupe racing, Squier created such celebrated events as the Labor Day Classic, Memorial Day Classic, Vermont Governor’s Cup and the world-famous Vermont Milk Bowl. In 2017, he and Tom Curley sold the track to partners Cris Michaud and Pat Malone. Squier remained active even after the sale.
According to a news release, Squier also built the Catamount Stadium in Milton during the 1965 season and later co-founded the Motor Racing Network in 1970 alongside NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.
He also had partnered with Curley to create the NASCAR North Tour, an international racing series that ultimately became the American-Canadian Tour, which celebrated its 45th consecutive season in 2023.
Perhaps Squier’s best-known broadcast achievement came in February 1979 with the first live flag-to-flag broadcast of the Daytona 500. It was Squier on the call who pointed out Dale Earnhardt Sr. at the start of his rookie season; excitedly caught the infamous fight between the Allison Brothers and Cale Yarborough; and Richard Petty’s record sixth of seven wins in “The Great American Race” — a phrase that was added to the NASCAR lexicon. Squier also is credited for arranging the first video cameras inside race cars for live shots.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Thursday credited Squier for helping to make NASCAR what it is today. On X,” Earnhardt wrote, “Ken Squier was there when Nascar was introduced to the rest of the world in 1979 for the Daytona 500. I’m convinced that race would have not had its lasting impact had Ken not been our lead narrator. We still ride the wave of that momentum created on that day. (Ken’s) words and energy were perfection on a day when Nascar needed it. I am forever grateful for his major role in growing stock car racing. RIP”
In the years that followed, Squier continued to elevate athletes, whether through national television coverage of NASCAR events on CBS, TNN and TBS and the Winter Olympics, announcing stock-car races across the Northeast, or through play-by-play on WDEV coverage of local high school and college sports.
Squier was voted the Vermont Sportscaster of the Year five times by his local colleagues in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association between 1963 and 1997. The Vermont Press Association also selected Squier and his stations for the Matthew Lyon Award in December 2013 for a lifetime commitment to the First Amendment and the public’s Right-to-Know in Vermont.
Spanning his broadcasting career, Squier has been honored with countless community awards, and with inductions into five halls of fame, including the Vermont Broadcasters Association, the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Vermont Principals’ Association. Five years ago, he won the New England Newspaper Press Association’s Yankee Quill Award “for his lifetime of contributions to the journalism profession in Vermont, New England and beyond, both in his newsrooms and on the air.”
Squier was a frequent visitor to Thunder Road after selling his famed creation to the partnership between multi-time Speedbowl champion Cris Michaud and Vermont businessman Pat Malone, speaking here with Malone (R) and Vermont governor and Thunder Road champion Phil Scott (L) following a drivers meeting in 2019. Buzz Fisher photo courtesy of Thunder Road
“Today, we mourn the loss of a true Vermont legend and dear friend to me and so many others,” wrote Gov. Phil Scott, a longtime race-car driver who got his start at Thunder Road. “Much will be made in Vermont and across the country of the NASCAR Hall of Famer’s extraordinary contributions to racing. … His impacts on the sport are too numerous to count, and he deserves every one of those recognitions and many more.”
Scott noted, “But for me, what I will remember most was his friendship and deep devotion to his community, which was the entire state. Ken was always looking for opportunities to give back and help those in need. He instilled those values as the backbone of Radio Vermont, which has been an essential part of the fabric of Vermont since its creation — always finding new ways to support more and more Vermonters. … I will always cherish the memories of all the time we spent together, and be thankful for his mentorship, humor, creativity and passion. From the booth, he often described those racing as ‘common men doing uncommon things.’ But in reality he was describing himself — because Ken was indeed a very common man who did extraordinary things.”
Radio Vermont Group
Staffers of WDEV feted their late boss with a two-hour call-in show on Thursday morning. On it, past and present employees, dignitaries and longtime friends and listeners shared anecdotes and stories about Squier. Many of them demonstrated his quirkiness and good humor.
By example, on WDEV, Squier started the popular show “Music to Go to the Dump By” with Brian Harwood in the 1960s. The hour-long program still airs every Saturday from 9 to 10 a.m. and is hosted by Jack Donovan.
“We started doing sports stuff in the afternoon in the late 1970s,” Donovan said. “He was just starting to get involved with CBS and also the motor-racing news. Then he got so busy the next few years that we didn’t work together too much, but we stayed in contact. And then in the late 1980s we started doing sports in the late afternoon — and that kind of morphed into ‘Music to Go to the Dump By.’”
Donovan said Squier was still doing the show “up until a year or two ago, and then he stepped aside from the program, but he asked me to continue it. I think that show was kind of his therapy — and he loved to do that. He was so busy with motor racing and running the radio station, but he just had fun with that program. Many people thought that because we fought all the time that we hated each other. But even though we sparred, that was far from the truth, and we respected each other and were friends.”
Donovan began his career at WDEV in 1972 and has always been in awe of Squier’s ability to juggle so many responsibilities.
“He had two lives: One in broadcasting and one in motor racing,” Donovan said. “And he was an icon of both. And he was heavily involved in the community — both in Waterbury and the state of Vermont.”
WDEV Program Director Lee Kittel was hired by Donovan in fall 2000 to fill an opening for the night shift. Even though Kittel and Squier didn’t work alongside each other at first, their professional relationship grew stronger and stronger over the course of two-plus decades.
“Ken was usually gone in the afternoon before I got here, so it was awhile before we actually crossed paths and communicated,” Kittel said. “But he was a patient teacher, a consummate broadcaster, a good boss and a good family man. … Ken was a uniquely gifted individual with a great many talents. And he loved this state and its community and its people. And you could feel that warmth every time he was on the radio.”
The content, Squier told the staff, had to be local, and preferably live.
Squier went so far as to develop a two-way relationship with many key Vermont newspapers, as well as Seven Days and VTDigger. WDEV got more content for its listeners, while the news organizations got to publicize their top stories. Each day, a news editor is invited to call in for 10 minutes and provide commentary about the news in their circulation area. “Conversations with the Editors” remains one of the most popular features on the station.
WDEV is also credited with bringing live news when it truly mattered.
When Tropical Storm Irene hit in 2011, Squier and a couple of his broadcasters kept the station on the air for almost 30 hours straight throughout the night and all the next day, with live reports being called in by Vermonters from their homes. In turn, The Vermont Association of Broadcasters presented them the “Station of the Year Award” for its efforts that weekend keeping people alive.
Ken Squier representing WDEV in a Waterbury parade. File photo by Gordon Miller
Renaissance man
Mike Donoghue, executive director of the Vermont Press Association and a longtime friend of Squier, called him “the ultimate renaissance man.”
He pointed to Squier’s national sportscasting career went well beyond auto racing, as he did stints with CBS, ABC, TNT and others. Squier reported several times from the Winter Olympics, and he also did broadcasting on national television for major golf and tennis matches, and ice skating.
“Ken Squier always said while he enjoyed covering the national sports scene, his first love was coming home to Central Vermont and his string of radio stations that can be heard in much of Vermont and into nearby states,” Donoghue said in introducing Squier at the Yankee Quill Award.
Donoghue pointed to Squier’s efforts to improve literacy in Vermont. Squier served as a longtime member of the Central Vermont Adult Basic Education and was a board chair of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra.
He also has been in several movies, mostly as a sportscaster, including and perhaps notably in the Burt Reynolds’ classic, “Cannonball Run.” PBS also produced a documentary that captured him called “Ken Squier, His Life ... So Far.”
“A sad day but a day to celebrate the life of an outstanding Vermonter and a great guy,” said former governor Jim Douglas, who regularly guest hosts WDEV’s public affairs show. Douglas appeared on the WDEV call-in show devoted to Squier and his legacy. “His reputation and reach was far beyond the borders of the Green Mountain State. … He was a visionary, he was energetic, he was committed to the Green Mountain State, and he’s somebody whose legacy is going to be remembered for a very long time.”
“What an extraordinary life he had, and the contributions to Vermont will be forever with us. We’ll think of him often, and we’ll continue to bring what we learned on the knee of Ken Squier into work every day,” said former WDEV employee Anson Tebbetts, who went on to work at WCAX and is now secretary of the Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets.
“Ken gave so much more back to his community than he ever took. We are all so much richer for what he gave us. Farewell, friend. I will miss our conversations, though I never could keep track of all those race car drivers you would tell me about. What a wonderful life. You’ve given us all music to go to the dump by and so much more,” wrote David Goodman, longtime host of “Vermont Conversation” and longtime friend, on Facebook.
Funeral arrangements have not been announced.
The following individuals contributed to this report: Times Argus Sports Editor Jamie Biggam; Editor Steven Pappas; Waterbury Roundabout Editor Lisa Scagliotti; and Waterbury Roundabout contributor Sandy Yusen.
This story was originally published by the Times Argus.