For 40 years, Del Ray John's warm, sonorous voice poured out of radios across Jackson Hole each morning.
For 35 of those years, he rose before the sun — often at 3:30 or 4 a.m. — and drove his car over Teton Pass from his home in Victor, Idaho, no matter the weather. Snow, ice, fog or shine, he made the trip so he could be on the air by 6 a.m.
In his earlier years in Jackson, the commute was shorter. Del Ray and his family lived above the radio station.
"It was a two-minute walk downstairs to the studio," said his son Justin John.
"They don't make very many true radio people," said Scott Anderson, who worked alongside Del Ray at Jackson Hole Radio for four decades. "Del Ray probably has interviewed every business owner over the past 40 years who was ever here, every nonprofit person, every rodeo queen and court, you name it."
Anderson described his colleague's singular audio presence as a "deep, authoritative voice, but one that was just instantly familiar" — like a kind and friendly neighbor talking to you personally.
Del Ray passed away Dec. 10 at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center. He was 80.
Early Life
Del Ray was born June 24, 1945, in Kirkland, Washington, and raised in Firth, Idaho, by Elmer John and Norma Hess John. He graduated from Firth High School, attended Ricks College and Brigham Young University, and earned a bachelor's degree in oceanography.
From a young age, Del Ray gravitated toward the spotlight. His brother LaMar John of Idaho Falls remembers him always wanting to emcee school assemblies, dances and programs.
"He was a man that loved people," LaMar said. "And he always had a crowd of people around him, because they loved him too."
At age 19, Del Ray served a 2-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York. Then came Vietnam.
Del Ray was drafted into the U.S. Army, and LaMar said he was part of reconnaissance missions that took him deep into the jungle. He rarely spoke about what he witnessed there, but the memories never left him.
"He said it was so difficult to be walking out through the jungle and having your companion, your friend, step on a landmine," LaMar recalled. "And having been blown to pieces."
The war changed him. LaMar said his brother "just wasn't the same person" when he returned. Del Ray left the church but found fellowship in his work and time volunteering for veteran causes.
"After I got home from Vietnam, I figured everything from here on out is gravy," Del Ray once told Anderson, explaining his perpetually positive outlook.
Radio Days
Del Ray began his radio career at KBLI in Blackfoot before moving to KUPI in Idaho Falls. He arrived in Jackson with his family in June 1988 — and, according to his Jackson Hole Radio biography, "was immediately blamed for bringing the fires to Yellowstone."
It was the start of an epic run as the morning voice of KSGT AM and later KJAX Country Radio.
Justin grew up in the station, walking downstairs to sit with his dad during broadcasts. He watched Del Ray turn every encounter into a friendship.
"The way he could interact and just talk to people and become friends with them almost instantly was insane," Justin said. "Sometimes it was a pain in the butt to go shopping with the man, because it's like, 'We got to go, dad,' and he's just chatting up somebody that he's never met before. That's just how he was. He just loved talking and making friends."
Anderson said Del Ray had an almost magical ability to put nervous in-studio guests at ease.
"Most people who come in are terrified," Anderson said. "They're all nervous about being on the air. And Del Ray would calm them down. And before you knew it, they were on the radio talking like they were old friends."
He could walk into an interview knowing nothing about the subject, Anderson said, "but he had the ability and the skill to make the guests tell it and get their information out. He could draw that out of people."
Jake Nichols, now host of the "Cowboy State Daily Show with Jake," learned this firsthand when he joined Del Ray for a morning talk show on KJAX in 2009.
"Del Ray was already a legend by then and, while it was an honor to be working alongside a talent like that, I seriously wondered how we would fit together," Nichols said. "I presumed I would be the hip, funny guy to Del Ray's AM radio, dinosaur 'straight man' act."
It did work that way some mornings, said Nichols, adding, “What I really recall is Del Ray's ability to navigate any role in radio. He was knowledgeable on just about everything. He could and would set you up expertly with the punchline but also deliver the humor himself. And that baritone voice. Wow!"
Nichols said Del Ray embodied the best of the medium: "He connected to radio audiences with the sincerity we are all taught. He made you feel like you were the one and only person he was talking to."
That gift served him well during the celebrity ski extravaganzas hosted at Teton Village.
"The amount of celebrities that he ended up becoming friends with," Justin said. "John Corbett from ‘Northern Exposure,’ Buzz Aldrin, Carl Weathers, Ruth Buzzi."
Del Ray became close with country singer Deana Carter, known for her hit "Strawberry Wine." She happened to be in town one day, swung into the radio station at the base of Snow King, chatted with Del Ray on the air — and they kept in touch.
"Everybody he met, they were never a stranger again," Justin said.
The pinnacle came during a Jackson Hole film festival in May 1997, when Del Ray landed an interview with Hollywood legend Jimmy Stewart.
"I think I conducted Jimmy Stewart's last interview," Del Ray wrote on Facebook. "What an incredible, kind gentleman. He and I spent over an hour together (it was meant to be 5 minutes). #1 favorite celebrity interview."
Anderson remembered listening to a recording of that interview. "Jimmy Stewart was, you could tell, very engaged," he said. "And that was Del Ray's, you know, his friendliness and just the way that he had about him."
Stage Presence
Del Ray's talents extended far beyond the radio booth. He was a natural performer who could play virtually any instrument by ear — piano, bass, trumpet, guitar — despite never taking a formal lesson, said LaMar.
In West Yellowstone, he appeared at the Playmill Theatre "probably the first year that they started," LaMar said. He also performed at the Pink Garter Playhouse in Jackson and took part in the Jackson Hole Shootout Gang, portraying a gunslinger in the famous town square reenactments.
In 2023, the Headwaters District of the Boy Scouts of America honored Del Ray as a "Hero of the Year" — recognizing not just his radio work but his decades of community service, his time narrating the Community Band children's concert, and his contributions to Eagle Scout courts of honor. Del Ray was himself an Eagle Scout.
Freedom Birds
Anderson said Del Ray rarely discussed his Vietnam service on the air, with two exceptions: the station's annual Veterans Day broadcast and his work with the Freedom Birds.
Del Ray was a founding member of the Freedom Birds, an informal group of Vietnam veterans from Eastern Idaho banded together in 1979. The name came from the passenger planes that soldiers in Vietnam called "Freedom Birds" — the aircraft that would carry them home from the danger and devastation of war.
The group focused on community service, charity events and social programs. Their crowning achievement was the Idaho State Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Freeman Park, Idaho Falls, dedicated on Aug. 4, 1990.
"I think he felt really good about expressing himself in that way," Anderson said. "But for the most part, he just didn't want to relive that stuff around us. He'd rather talk about the new Alan Jackson album."
Final Tribute
Del Ray started every show with the national anthem — a holdover from the old days of radio when stations would sign on and off the air.
And he ended every show the same way, too: "Enjoy yourself and enjoy each other."
Retirement was never really on the table. When LaMar once asked his brother why he didn't quit, Del Ray laughed.
"He said, 'Well, if I retire, all I'm going to do is go home and play music,'" LaMar recalled. "'I may as well do it here at the radio station, get paid for it.'"
Even at 80, Del Ray showed no signs of slowing down. Anderson was pulling together a home studio in Victor so he could broadcast on days when he wasn't feeling well enough to make the drive over Teton Pass.
"We fully expected in the beginning that we would never have to look for a replacement for Del Ray, at least not anytime soon, even at the age of 80," Anderson said. "He was fine and happy and spry and with it until he wasn't."
Justin said his father taught him to take everything in stride and always be the bigger, kinder person.
"He never really had a hateful bone in his body," Justin said. "Even when I would screw up and I thought, 'Dad is going to kill me,' he would just look at me and go, 'Well, I hope you learned your lesson. Let's just move on and not dwell on the past.'"
Some of Justin's favorite memories are the hours he spent on the back of his father's motorcycle. When he turned 16, Del Ray took him to the big bike rally in Sturgis, South Dakota — sleeping in tents on the side of the road, doing it the way Del Ray always did.
"To be able to sit on the back of the motorcycle with dad for hours on end and just experience what he enjoyed," Justin said. "That's one of the memories that I'll always look back on. It was such a fantastic father-son moment."
Del Ray is survived by his wife, Lynda John of Victor; daughter Kaisha Daley of Poplarville, Mississippi; sons Justin John and Jeremy John, both of Victor; brother LaMar John of Idaho Falls; sister Diana Bell of Donalds, South Carolina; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
Memorial services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Dec. 19, at Wood Funeral Home East Side, 963 South Ammon Road, in Idaho Falls. The family will visit with friends from 10 to 10:45 a.m. prior to the service. Military honors will be performed by the Bonneville County Veterans Memorial Team and Idaho Honor Guard.
"I think that would make him proud," Anderson said.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Primary Children's Hospital.
"Try to remember how much he loved the community," Anderson said. "And I think how much the community probably got used to taking him for granted. But they're going to miss that voice."
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
