San Jose Inside: Death of Local Media Great Bob Kieve

Dan Pulcrano recently offered a fine tribute at San Jose Inside to longtime San Jose media executive Bob Kieve, who died May 24 at 98.

In fascinating detail, Pulcrano recounted Kieve’s long, colorful, and varied life, from getting the autographs of Major League Baseball greats like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as a 12-year-old boy to serving as a speechwriter for Dwight Eisenhower’s presidential administration to owning radio stations KLIV, KARA, and KRTY.

“The spry and elvish media executive’s work ethic was inspiring to those who knew him and assumed he would somehow just keep on living,” Pulcrano wrote.

Pulcrano also paid tribute to Kieve’s sense of civic duty. He noted Kieve’s work to allow signs on San Jose’s skyline to celebrate local tech businesses such as Adobe. Pulcrano wrote of Kieve’s more than four decades in the San Jose Rotary Club, including his 1990-91 stint as president when he dubbed his chapter the “Greatest Rotary Club in the World.” Pulcrano also wrote of Kieve attempting just last year to donate one of his radio stations, KLIV, to the city of San Jose and San Jose State University.

Pulcrano also paid tribute to Kieve’s indefatigable spirit and work ethic, which kept him active into his late nineties.

“Disbelief is unavoidable when someone’s been so ubiquitous a part of the civic landscape for so many decades,” Pulcrano wrote. “Just like the look on someone’s face after they met Kieve for the first time and someone mentioned afterwards, ‘You know, he’s 98.’”