R.I.P.: KGVY Green Valley AZ Radio Founder Martha Crystall

Martha Crystall

Martha Crystall, who with her husband, Joe, founded KGVY 1080 AM radio with a Big Band sound in 1981, died Monday in Tucson.

She was 93, according to Green Valley News.

The Crystalls used the radio station to promote Green Valley through community programs and news. They launched the popular radio talk show “Around the Cracker Barrel,” and the station's catch-phrase, “Music the way it was and still is.”

The couple's daughter, Bonnie Crystall of Tempe, said her dad got fed up with the bureacracy of radio in Tucson and the couple decided to start their own station with an available signal in Green Valley.

Martha handled all the finances and, with voice and acting training from Northwestern University in the 1940s, was heard on countless commercials and public service announcements.

“Green Valley had no voice, so this was it,” Bonnie said. “It was all about the music because that's what the people of that generation and living in Green Valley listened to, it was Big Band.”

KGVY 1080 AM (1 Kw) Red=Local Coverage Area

The couple sold the station in 1998 to Nelson Multi-Media, and Martha retired; Joe kept active in several activities. He was inducted into the Arizona Broadcasters Hall of Fame in 1996. He died in a car accident in Tucson in 2001.