This Vermont Conversation originally aired on January 8, 2020.

A beloved voice of Vermont fell silent with the passing of Kenley Dean Squier on Nov. 15, 2023. He was 88 years old. 

Squier is best known as a NASCAR Hall of Fame broadcaster and the owner of radio station WDEV, part of the Radio Vermont Group, which has been owned by the Squier family for over nine decades.

Ken Squier was my friend. A highlight of coming to the WDEV studio to broadcast The Vermont Conversation every week since 2013 was spending time afterward in Ken’s office discussing the news of the day or the latest book of history that he was reading. Ken would also regale me with stories of auto racing, though I never could keep straight the numerous racers who he would name drop. Ken was fiercely committed to featuring a rich diversity of voices on the airwaves. He believed it was an essential part of a healthy society and a functioning democracy.

Ken decried the rise of partisan media such as Fox News. He told me on The Vermont Conversation, “There's got to be places on the radio where you can tune in on one station where there are ideas and philosophies that aren't all the same."

He said he took the same approach to running a radio station as a Vermont farmer. “You don't put down just one crop. That'll put you right over the side of the barrel in no time at all.”

“If we could get in here and talk to each other and listen to each other, that's what we need to do. And Vermonters know it better than anyone else. That's why we have town meetings. And people get up there and by God, they say what they want to say. Isn't that good?”

Squier provided then-Rep. Bernie Sanders his own weekly radio program on WDEV in 2003 and 2004. The program later evolved into “Brunch With Bernie,” a nationally syndicated weekly program with radio host Thom Hartmann.

How was Sanders on the radio at first? 

“Awful,” replied Squier. “Because he did the same mantra ... Jesus, we knew his message by heart. We had it memorized if you listened for two days in a row."

Squier insisted that Sanders take listener calls, which the congressman initially resisted. "He said that would take him off his message."

Squier prevailed and "come to find out, he rather enjoyed it." That transformed the program, and Sanders, into a national hit.

I asked Squier why he gave Sanders a platform.

“Because (he) was one of the ones that wasn't being paid attention to. Everybody laughed and giggled. They're not laughing now. He's changing the way America is thinking, and America needs to change some of their thinking. … And I'm very pleased that we had something to do with Bernie." 

Sanders paid tribute to Squier following his death. “Vermont has lost a true legend,” he posted last week on X, formerly Twitter. “Ken was an undeniable voice for generations of Vermonters and car racing fans across the country. More than that though, Ken was an irreplaceable part of his community in Vermont.”

Squier implored, “There has to be room in this country to carry on a conversation that does have other ideas and other opinions. Doesn't happen too much. Needs to.”