Misha Prather

While Ken Prather had been an announcer at KSPR, his wife, Misha Prather, was a teacher at Dean Morgan Junior High School and a college professor at Casper’s new Junior college.  In 1957, Ken and Misha  began negotiations to buy KATI, and consulted Pat Meenan whose CPA office was located in the “Midwest Building” the same building that housed the KATI office and studios.  Meenan and the Prather’s became friends and Pat bought a 1/3 interest in KATI.

Both the Prather’s were on the air…Ken doing the morning show and selling advertising during the rest of the day.  Misha ran the offices but also did daily program logs and a daily interview program at noon that would feature local businessmen and city & county officials.  The program was very popular and became the predecessor to the long running “Free For All.”  As Misha had been a teacher and college professor, she also knew a lot of the young people in Casper and was very popular.  KATI programmed “Popular” music for the young people and programs and news to the older generation.

In 1961 the Prathers moved to Boulder to open another station there called KDEY, and in 1963 Pat Meenan bought them out to become sole owner of KATI.