Three of Lake Tahoe’s well-known radio voices are being inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame on Aug. 18 in Las Vegas.

Bill Kingman, Curtis Fong and Ed Crook have 115 years of experience between the three of them.

They will be recognized locally on Aug. 10 at an open house at KTHO’s offices in Heavenly Village from 4-7pm.

Bill Kingman

Kingman started his broadcasting career in 1959 while in high school. Two years later he was working for KOWL, which was broadcast from Harrah’s Lake Tahoe.

He has been a disc jockey and chief engineer at every Lake Tahoe station, plus freelancing at Reno and Carson City stations. In the 1980s, Kingman was part owner of KOWL.

When an extortionist planted a bomb at Harveys hotel-casino in Stateline in August 1980, KRLT’s transmitter atop Harveys was silenced when the building was evacuated. KOWL’s studios inside Harrah’s also had to be vacated. Hours before the bomb exploded, Kingman wired KRLT’s studios to KOWL’s transmitter. The staffs broadcast coverage together.

Kingman has long been the voice of the South Shore – from delivering community news to breaking news.

He tried to retire in 2001, but he took on a “one-weekend project” to restore defunct KTHO from silence so the community would have a choice. He stayed 10 years.

Kingman announces the annual July 4 fireworks show and still records public service announcements for the community on his home laptop and imports them via the Internet.

Curtis Fong

Fong, best known as the Guy From Tahoe, has been keeping skiers and snowboarders informed with his winter daily mountain report first on KRLT and now KTHO, and online via Lake Tahoe News.

He provided live reports from the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympic Games and was the weekend announcer on KRLT from 2000-06.

Fong started in radio as an account executive for KSFM-102 in Sacramento from 1978-1979. He has worked for KMTN-TV and RSN Lake Tahoe.

Ed Crook

Crook’s broadcast experience spans more than 50 years, having started in 1951 when as a student at John Muir Junior College in Pasadena he hosted a weekly show on KWKW.

From 1960-73, he worked in the aerospace industry during the day and as a disc jockey in the evenings and weekends at KWOW-AM, KGRB-AM, KBOB-FM, and KDWC-FM.

Crook moved to Lake Tahoe to build and put KRLT-FM on the air. In 1979, he became general manager of KPTL-AM and KKBC-FM in Carson City-Reno.

In 2001, Crook was asked to help restore KTHO-AM back on the air after being silent for almost a year due to a failed buyer. He was interim general manager until the owner sold the station in 2009.

Crook is now the director of operations for KTHO.