The Upper Peninsula lost one of its broadcast pioneers recently with the passing of Lou Chappell.

Chappell, 85, died Feb. 14 at home in the Marquette area.

We won’t try to mention all of Chappell’s accomplishments here. Readers are referred to The Mining Journal’s obituary section for an exhaustive review of all he was and did.

We’ll simply note Chappell was among a very small number of people who played key roles in local business, specifically the broadcasting community.

Start with early work at WLUV-TV6. Chappell was both an on-air and behind the scenes personality. In fact, he was the youngest general manager of a CBS affiliate (TV6 was a CBS affiliate in those days) in the country.

Later, he was instrumental in further developing radio in this area. He helped start Stereo 100, WUUN-FM, the first full-service stereo station in the city of Marquette.

Still later, he led WDMJ, AM 1320 for many years, converting the outlet into a community-oriented broadcast facility.

Along the way, he engaged in significant community support activities, serving in the Acocks Board, the Ambassadors, the Economics Club and the MARS Board.

In addition, he worked for a good number of years for the Michigan Department of Corrections as spokesperson and then administrative assistant to Warden Stine at Alger Max, retiring in 1998.

All of this is but the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what Chappell accomplished.

Above and beyond everything else, Chappell was known to be a good and caring individual, a hard and dedicated worker.

He will be missed.