Glacier City Radio’s Lewis Leonard recounts years of interesting experiences

By Hannah Dillon

TNews Associate Editor

Lewis Leonard is the passionate founder of Girdwood’s community radio station Glacier City Radio, KEUL 88.9. Leonard spoke with Turnagain News to elaborate on how his exciting life led to the creation of Glacier City Radio. 

Leonard was born and raised in Anchorage and grew up in the alleys of 4th Avenue, and, in junior high, developed an interest in audio and electronics.

At Anchorage’s West High, Leonard delved more into radio, theater and photography. One summer out of highschool he was a sports photographer for The Anchorage Times. 

Leonard originally went to college for electrical engineering. He then moved to University of Colorado to be on their ski team and changed his major to aerospace engineering. After a bit more bouncing around universities, Leonard decided to receive his two-year degree in drama. 

Leonard said one of the phrases he uses to describe his experience in education is “over a 10 year period, I took eight years of college at four different schools and got a two year degree. So I had fun traveling around, living places, seeing things.”

While living in Colorado, attending University of Colorado, Leonard decided to spend his week-long vacation from classes hitchhiking. Leonard hitchhiked from Denver to Washington D.C in two days. While he was  in D.C, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, which did not fare well in Leonard’s return to Denver – where he could only make it to St. Louis, Missouri before having to buy a plane ticket to attend class on time the next morning.

Lewis Leonard sitting at the KEUL 88.9 FM station studio. (Photo by Hannah Dillon)

In college he took an opera workshop while in community theater. He was in the chorus line of Broadway musicals while also taking a variety of dance classes from “ballet, to modern, to tap.”

“When I was in Houston, 1970, I decided I was going to be a DJ at a high powered radio station. So I went to three different stations and talked to people and ended up at KPFT,” where Leonard said he enjoyed his night-time radio show from midnight to six a.m., “[KPFT] just went on the air and got bombed off the air twice by the KKK as it turned out – at least that's what the FBI said.” 

Some time after, Leonard returned to Alaska where he decided to start his own radio station. He had no idea where this decision would go but he formed an organization with a friend, Jim Parsons, and sought a license to legally go on air.  The station is now KSKA, Public Radio in Anchorage. Leonard decided he wasn’t very keen on becoming an administrator, he said with a light chuckle, so he then started a “theatrical group with all the hippies down here.”

Although Leonard was once again called to the theater, he eventually found himself starting a radio station in Girdwood.   FM 88.9 now resides in Girdwood's first school building, built by the Girdwood Community Club in Old Girdwood.  It now sits next to Glacier City Hall in Girdwood Park.

Old equipment in the former Glacier City Radio tower. (Photo by Hannah Dillon)

While Leonard grew up in Anchorage, the ski-slopes of Girdwood piqued his interest as he had a background with skiing. His first set of skis were given to him around seven years old by his father. The pair was a simple design of “two boards with the tips up-turned with a red cotton strap nailed to each side, and you slipped your foot under the red cotton strap,” said Leonard.

Leonard became a helicopter ski guide in the 70s and 80s which would lead him to an 11-year career as an EMS worker on an ambulance for Girdwood. “Dealing with the highway, and the resort and medical issues here was pretty wild and crazy,” said Leonard.

Before the height of Covid-19 in 2020, Leonard was Girdwood’s Vice President of the Land Use Committee for a year, translating “legalese” into layman’s terms, and revising their operating procedures and crafting the rules for local marijuana growing and sales.'

Leonard’s contributions to the Girdwood community has become a long and fascinating list – and his contributions continue to thrive through music played for the people he has come to know in the last 50 years of living in Girdwood. 

(Revised for clarification 7/30/24)