Lew Latto

Inducted 2003

He was an announcer and program director in his teens, a station owner in his twenties, and is an owner and popular talk show host today. For nearly fifty years, Lew Latto has been a major figure in Minnesota radio.

He began his career at age 14 as an announcer and disc jockey at WKLK Cloquet in 1954. His big break came four years later at WDSM Duluth, when a new manager changed the station’s format to Top 40 and appointed him music director. He worked at WEBC Duluth, while attending the University of Minnesota – Duluth, and became an owner in 1964, when he purchased the 1,000-watt daytime station WAKX Duluth. In the early 1970s, he moved WAKX to the FM dial, and his original AM station became KXTP. He sold them in 1994, after owning and operating them for over twenty years, but still owned WEVE FM/KRBT AM Eveleth, as well as KGPZ FM Grand Rapids. His talk show, “Lew Latto Live,” was one of the most popular in the region for many years. He served on the Duluth City Council for seven years, was a director of the National Association of FM Broadcasters, and was a president of the Minnesota Broadcasters Association.

Lew passed away on August 24, 2011.