Bernds was born in 1905 in Chicago, Illinois. While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio clique and obtained amateur licenses. In the early '20s there was considerable prestige for an amateur operator (a ham) to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to get into broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, a year when radio stations began popping up all over Chicago. He found employment--at age 20--as chief operator at ...[Read Story]