Chronicle: Empire Broadcasting Founder/Pres. and Country KRTY/San Jose CEO Bob Kieve passed away May 24 at the age of 98. Prior to purchasing his first station, KLIV-AM/San Jose, on July 1, 1967, Kieve served in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s White House, worked on the predecessor of Radio Free Europe after World War II and helped Spain’s royal family create an all-news radio network for the country. His radio stops also included then-CBS Radio/New York and WBEE/Rochester, NY, and he spent more than 70 years on-air in total. “His broadcast legacy is legendary, but his community involvement and philanthropy here in San Jose and the Silicon Valley is his legacy,” KRTY GM Nate Deaton tells Country Aircheck. Services are currently pending.

Industry vet Stan Byrd passed away Saturday (5/23) from complications of a stroke. He was 77. Byrd’s industry career began in radio while a student at Texas A&M. In 1970, he joined Capitol for local promotion based in Houston. He held Texas-based promotion posts for Mercury and Columbia/Epic before being named VP/Promotion for Warner Bros./Nashville in 1976. Byrd launched Chart Attack, an indie promotion firm, in 1984 and founded BDM Management in 1990 with Mark Chesnutt as the primary client. In Feb. 1997, he was named VP/Promotion for Asylum/Nashville, a post he held through the label's 2000 merger with Warner-Reprise/Nashville. Byrd left that post in April 2001. Arrangements are pending.