Herb Jepko - Early Years

Early Years

According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, Herb Jepko was born in Hayden, Colorado to a single mother named Mary Irene Parke. He was originally named William, but when he was adopted by Metro and Nellie Jepko of Prescott, Arizona, they renamed him Herbert Earl Jepko. Metro and Nellie's marriage was not a happy one. After they divorced, Metro got custody, but he was a wounded World War I veteran, and he soon took ill. With his father unable to care for him, Herb had to spend time in foster care off and on. He attended school in Prescott, but then his father got healthy enough to take care of him again, and in 1949, they moved to Phoenix. Herb graduated high school there, and briefly attended Phoenix College, which was then a small two-year college and is today flagship of the Maricopa Community College system. He hoped to become a doctor, but soon ran out of money and was drafted into the Army. (1) It was during his time in the military that he discovered his life's work—radio, working in Radio-Television Operations while serving in the Korean War.

After completing his military service, he found work in radio at several stations around the Western United States, including KVNA in Flagstaff, AZ and KFI in Los Angeles. It was while he was the promotion director at KFI that he was influenced by a popular late night host named Ben Hunter, whose overnight call-in program was called the Night Owl show. Hunter's work was getting a lot of positive attention, and Herb was impressed with how loyal the late-night audience was. He stayed in LA throughout the rest of the 50s, where he married Patsy Little Brown (listeners would later know her as 'Pat'). Herb, Patsy and their five children from previous marriages moved to Salt Lake City, her home town, in the early 1960s. They later had one child together, Herb Jepko Junior (Jep or Jeppy). By all accounts, they deeply loved each other and their relationship was a strong one.