Earl E. May

(1888-1946) born near Hayes Center, Hayes County, lived in Fremont and Lincoln. Educator, broadcast executive, businessman, known as radio pioneer who used the medium for education and publicity purposes during its early years, founded in 1925 Shenandoah, Iowa's KMA to promote the Earl May Seed & Nursery Company, where he originated the early morning broadcast and audience participation in programming; awarded gold cup by Radio Digest in 1926 as the most popular announcer in the nation while his station was heard on a clear channel nationwide until frequency and power regulations were established in 1934 by the FCC. Consult obituaries in Shenandoah, Iowa Evening Sentinel, December 19, 1946, pp. 1, 5 and Hayes Center Times-Republican, December 26, 1946, p. 1 and Ninette Beaver and Bill Tombrink, Behind The Mike With Earl May (May Seed and Nursery, 1976) and Sunday /Omaha/ World Herald Magazine of the Midlands, December 13, 1981, pp. 8-9.

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