Jerome Zimmer, local radio pioneer, dead at 81

Jerome Zimmer, a well-respected local radio pioneer who started one of the nation's first country stations in Cape Girardeau before creating stations that now run across the dial, died Tuesday. He was 81.

Zimmer was the founder of Zimmer Broadcasting, which today includes 32 stations in Illinois, Kansas and Missouri, including five in Cape Girardeau.

"He started all those stations from little or nothing and made it into one of the best run family operations that there ever have been," said long-time friend Charlie Hutson, who owns Hutson Fine Furniture.

Zimmer was born in his family home in Cape Girardeau on July 15, 1921, the seventh of 10 children. Zimmer attended St. Mary's School in Cape Girardeau, and graduated from Chaminade High School in St. Louis in 1939. He then attended Southeast Missouri State University.

He began his business career in Cape Girardeau and started his first radio station at Dexter, Mo., in 1956, with a partner. In 1966 he started KZYM Radio in Cape Girardeau, one of the first country music stations in the United States.

Zimmer continued to expand his radio interests in Zimmer Broadcasting with the help of his six sons, who now run the business. In 1996 he received the Missouri Broadcasters Association Lifetime Achievement Award.

"He was a heck of a family man," Hutson said. "He raised all those sons up to the family business. He was a religious person, a family man and a business man. He was successful in all of them. You can't say he struck out, can you?"

His son, James Zimmer, said that his father knew something about the business that was 30 years ahead of other broadcasters.

"He was so focused on helping the customers," James Zimmer said. "We have basically two customers: listeners and advertisers. He knew if you take care of them, the business would be a success."

Zimmer started the station in Cape Girardeau with much resistance from those who thought a third radio station could never survive the competition.

"He started that country station at a time when it was hard to find a lot of country music from sunrise to sunset," James Zimmer said. "But he believed in it."

Locally, Zimmer Broadcasting owns the FM stations K-103, Real Rock 99.3, KISS 93.9 and AM stations KZIM 960 talk radio and ESPN 1220 KGIR.

"He had a passion for God, a passion for radio and a passion for Notre Dame football and Notre Dame High School," James Zimmer said. "And crossword puzzles. Working on those crossword puzzles kept his brain as sharp as a tack."

Jim Limbaugh, president of First National Bank of Cape Girardeau, also is a long-time family friend.

"He had a terrific work ethic and was content to work behind the scenes," Limbaugh said. "He didn't mind standing back and allowing others to grow professionally."

Limbaugh said that people ought to realize what Zimmer meant to the community.

"To start out with 200 bucks and build a company that has 32 stations from Lawrence, Kansas, to Carbondale, Illinois, is significant," he said. "It doesn't happen accidentally."

Full obituary information is listed on Page 6B.

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