He recorded Casey Kasem’s “American Top 40” onto a cassette player as a kid. Now, he hosts a Top 40 morning show at his favorite childhood radio station, K-WOLF 98.1, in Fairbanks, Alaska. He’s also on afternoons in Anchorage on Movin’ 105.7, a Hot AC station, both part of Last Frontier Mediactive, Inc.
Ken “VMaxx” Vehmeier is heard all over the Alaskan airwaves during the week and also announces just about every sports event for the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, as well as for the National Federation of High School sports (NFHS) on the weekend.
The 60-year-old is divorced with two grown children, Zach and Zoe, who both live in Alaska. He was born and raised in Fairbanks. His father and grandfather were carpenters and bridge builders.
“Every summer, we lived someplace different. They were working on bridges, so we were fishing on just about every bridge in Alaska,” he says.
He went to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, where he got his start in radio. That’s where he and his college crew chose the “VMaxx” moniker.
VMaxx Origin Story
“Ken is just not a good radio name, so my buddies and I were sitting around drinking and brainstorming. The ‘V’ is for Vehmeier. Yamaha made a snow machine, VMaxx, and there’s a brand of motorcycle that’s a VMaxx, so that works and now more people call me VMaxx than Ken,” he says.
Unfortunately, the college rock station was collecting advertising dollars but not paying the talent. That’s illegal, so after a disgruntled DJ blew the whistle, the station was shut down.
After the outfit was bought by new owners, VMaxx says, there were part-time jobs available for very low pay. As the father of a young son, he needed to make more money.
VMaxx of All Trades
He worked for Pepsi for fifteen years as well as in retail, sales, and construction. He also worked in a cannery as a commercial fisherman and fought forest fires. Even though he wasn’t on air as a radio DJ, he was on the microphone, keeping up with current music and spinning it as a wedding, school dance, and event DJ with his own company, Alaska DJ Services, for 25 years.
Who Wants to Be a DJ?
It was a promotional contest that got VMaxx back on the airwaves. The “Who Wants to Be a DJ?” campaign pits wanna-be announcers against each other.
“We went to a car dealership and had to read a commercial. Then, we had to do stand-up comedy at a different location. We competed, and people were eliminated.”
VMaxx came in second, which, he says, “was fine because it got me in the door for a part-time slot, which led to a full-time spot, which got me into the university. It has opened up a whole bunch of other great side hustles, like PA/DJ work and sports broadcasting.”
Grizzlies and Nanooks
“We had an indoor football team here (The Fairbanks Grizzlies, 2008-2011), and I was doing the announcing and playing music,” VMaxx recalls. “The University of Alaska athletic director saw me there and said, ‘I love what you do,’ and he hired me.”
He’s been announcing for the school’s Division One hockey team for 17 years.
Eight years ago, the university asked him to do play-by-play for men’s and women’s Nanooks basketball and volleyball. “Last year, they had me do PA, so I bounce back and forth, and they can pull me out for whatever they need,” he says. “I like it when we have a doubleheader of basketball during the day and hockey at night,” he says.
He also does play-by-play for the Network of National High School Sports, which broadcasts a video stream of every championship sport in all fifty states.
“The basketball tournament in Anchorage is the biggest one here,” he explains. “First, it’s 1A and 2A schools, very small villages; the next week is the larger schools,” VMaxx called 54 games in eight days doing play-by-play for basketball there. He says he’s learned how to keep his voice intact by not getting overexcited and by using throat lozenges.
He says he really works at the sports announcing and DJing. “I pride myself on the bits I put in and keep redoing them to keep them short and tight. I use as many as 200 twenty-second clips of music per game because you’ve got to try to please everybody.”
The former “prize pig” can’t believe he’s able to make a living on the radio. What’s more, he was hired by his childhood idols, Glenner Anderson and Jerry Evans (Glenner and Jerry). He’s also pretty tickled that he won The Anchorage Press Reader’s Choice Award for Best DJ. VMaxx, who voice-tracks from Fairbanks, won the Anchorage award by just one vote, beating out veteran Anchorage talent he knows and looks up to. He stays current with Anchorage activities to share with his Movin’ 105.7 audience via the station’s sales staff, social media, and when he’s in Anchorage covering sports.
“It never feels like a job,” says the Fairbanks morning show and Anchorage afternoon show host.
Importance of Radio and Sports Coverage in Alaska
VMaxx says local radio and sports coverage is especially important in Alaska. “People in these small, remote communities are eager to hire somebody to cover their football games. They really get behind their schools and their sports and radio,” he explains.
He says local radio connects Alaskans to their community and that the Last Frontier stations he works for strive to do that. “We are very involved with our local non-profits. We sponsor as many walks and runs as we can. We sponsor youth sports teams, and we always promote as many local happenings on our stations as we can. It really sets us apart from Spotify and the stations that run out-of-market talent.”
VMaxx says he’s happy to support the Fairbanks Community Food Bank because there was a time when he had a young family, and they needed a food box.
He says the radio stations’ owners, the Ingstad brothers, “are a big radio family so they get it. When they took over,” he recalls, “they didn’t lay anybody off, they hired people, and got a new building.”
When he’s not on the mic, VMaxx is active on Alaska’s waterways as a jet skier and fly-fisherman. He’s a mountain biker and went back to college last year to take a pickleball course. He’s also, he says, “somewhat of a spin fanatic.”
What Doesn’t Kill You Saves Your Life
Spin, he says, almost killed him while simultaneously saving his life. He was taking a spin cycle class in December 2020 and felt something strange in his leg while doing a burpee. He couldn’t catch his breath, but he still kept going. He would take five more spin classes and find himself really winded at work before he finally went to a walk-in clinic where a doctor diagnosed deep vein thrombosis and told VMaxx to get to the hospital, stat.
“My lungs were full of blood clots. A deep vein thrombosis broke off in my leg. My heart could not oxygenate. It was working triple time to get blood through my lungs.
“They said, ‘Your spin classes saved your life because your heart is in amazing shape.’ Most people would have had a heart attack. Their hearts wouldn’t have been able to continue to pump blood, but mine did.”
DVT has an 85 percent death rate, he says. “They put me on blood thinners, and I had every test done. We don’t have any answers yet, so I make sure I get that blood pumping all the time.”
Second Chance
He says the clot should have killed him and that he’s been given a second chance at life. That lucky, second chance feeling has intensified after learning that his older brother, Glen, died in May in Mississippi of a likely pulmonary embolism or heart attack.
“Spend time with your family and friends,” he says, “because you never know when it’s going to get you like it got my older brother. Enjoy life and stop stressing so much about the small things.”
He’ll have to pay the bills, though, while he’s enjoying his new lease on life and for VMaxx, radio is the way to go. “I’m pretty much happy every day, and I’m not breaking my back doing it because I’ve done that with other jobs. Since I’ve been on the radio full time, I’m proud of what I do, and I’ve never had a bad day at work.”
Amy Snider is a music features reporter for Barrett Media specializing on stories involving radio professionals working in Adult Contemporary/CHR/Top 40 formats. She brings over twenty-five years of media experience to the outlet. Based in St. Petersburg, FL, Amy works for iHeartMedia and the Total Traffic and Weather Network as an on-air reporter, appearing on dozens of radio stations including 98 Rock, Mix 100.7, 95.3 WDAE, and Newsradio WFLA. She has also reported and anchored in the Tampa market at Fox 13, News Channel 8, WMNF Community Radio and WUSF-FM, the NPR affiliate.
Amy is a music fanatic. She hosted a drive-time rock and roll radio show for 20 years on WMNF-FM and is known as a tastemaker in the music and arts community. She booked, hosted, emceed and promoted a wildly popular weekly live music event in Tampa’s Ybor City featuring original music with performers from all over the world. Her free time is often spent at concerts and music festivals. To get in touch, find her on X @AmySnider4.
