WHO radio morning hosts Van and Bonnie enshrined in Iowa Broadcasters Hall of Fame

Sometimes people will meet WHO radio host Van Harden in public and start to tell him stories from their lives.

They are often very personal stories, Harden said, “things you would tell your doctor or your pastor.”

“But the people will say, ‘I know you. I trust you. You’re my friend. I listen to you every morning,’” Harden continued. “That’s something I’ve always been moved by and always take seriously.”

That connection between listeners and morning show hosts is part of the reason why Harden and his morning co-host, Bonnie Lucas, were inducted into the Iowa Broadcasters Hall of Fame this week.

“The Van and Bonnie Show” begins each morning a minute before 5 a.m. Harden dubs its loyal listeners “The 4:59’ers.”

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The show is consistently the top-rated morning show on the powerful 50,000-watt WHO-AM band that reaches nearly every corner of the state.

Harden believes their success stems from focus on local news, sports and entertainment, putting them ahead of competing stations that use syndicated programs.

“If something funny is going on in Des Moines or something tragic is going on in Des Moines, we’re there every morning to talk about it,” Harden said.

The duo has often left the friendly confines of the Hawkeye State for adventures.

They broadcast from a bobsled during the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and on the deck of the U.S.S. Harry Truman.

The radio team had an Anderson Erickson ice cream flavor named after them: Van and Bonbon, vanilla ice cream with chocolate bonbons.

The promotion was supposed to be for three months one summer, but it kept selling out. It ran for 13 years until AE finally stopped making ice cream.

Harden began his career at a Perry radio station upon graduating from Drake University in 1971. He worked a station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, briefly before returning to the Des Moines market to work at KRNT.

He joined WHO in 1986 when the radio station was in turmoil.

“We were a mess,” Harden said. “Our ratings were bad. Our sales were bad. They were looking to rebuild from the ground up.”

Harden’s morning show's first co-host was Patti Christiansen, but Christiansen didn’t care for the pre-dawn hours and left.

Connie Murad hosted with Harden until 1992. She left the show and Harden held open interviews. People who wanted the job had to do a four-hour show with him.

Bonnie Lucas’ interview slot came during the Iowa State Fair. The trick about doing the fair broadcast is that often the gates aren’t open. Harden and his partner would have to climb the gates to get into the fairgrounds.

Lucas had suffered cuts and scrapes to her legs from an in-line skating incident and wasn’t for climbing fences. Van assured her he made arrangements to have the gates open for them.

“Guess what?” Lucas said, “they weren’t open. Van said, ‘Here, I’ll give you a boost.’ Just as I get to the top, a security guard showed up and asked what we thought we were doing. I pointed at Van and said, ‘He told me to do it.’”

Lucas won her spot on the air, in part because she suggested on air that WHO could save money by simply replacing the consonant sound from “Van and Connie” to “Van and Bonnie” on promos.

“We could just edit in ‘buh’ over the ‘cah,’” Lucas said, which they did for a while as a gag.

Throughout the show’s run, the hosts have focused on charity.

In the past year, the hosts helped raise $162,000 for the Pinky Swear Foundation, an organization geared towards helping kids stricken by cancer and their families.

They gave away over 5,000 pork loins for “Operation Christmas Meal,” Iowa Select Farms' annual free pork loin giveaway for local families in need.

They packed more than 30,000 meals for the hungry at Meals for the Heartland.

Those connections may explain why people view Harden and Lucas as friends.

“That connection,” Harden said. “That’s really what I got into this business for.”

Register Storyteller Daniel P. Finney grew up in Winterset and east Des Moines. Suggest stories at 515-284-8144 or dafinney@dmreg.com.