Helen Duhamel

She was best known for saving the Duhamel Company from bankruptcy and establishing a cluster of radio and television stations in western South Dakota and Nebraska in the United States.

[1] Helen Duhamel was born on November 26, 1904, in Windsor, Missouri, and she moved to northwestern Nebraska when she was two years old.

[4] Marrying Bud introduced her to the Duhamel family business, which had started as a hardware store in Rapid City in the early twentieth century.

At the time, KOBH was the only radio station in western South Dakota, and it was located directly across the street from the Duhamel Trading Post in Rapid City.

With Pentagon backing, Case convinced the FCC to grant the more powerful license effective January 1, 1945.

In order to supply programming, she erected a chain of microwave transmitters to bring live TV signals to Rapid City for broadcast over KOTA-TV.

[3] In the same year that she and Bud celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary, Helen Duhamel died in Rapid City on November 8, 1991.