Obituary: Cable TV programming pioneer Byrl John Klindworth dies at 92

Byrl John Klindworth's mosaic of personal and professional passions spanned the globe, sending him clambering to the top of a water tower in southern Minnesota and on a five-year global odyssey years later on the high seas with the love of his life.

In between, he became a pioneer in the expansion of television programming to underserved parts of the state as well as to the Caribbean and Down Under. He also had a hand in the birth of the Twin Cities Figure Skating Association, thanks to his daughters' interest in the sport.

Klindworth, who raised four children with his wife in Edina before moving to the U.S. Virgin Islands and then to Bloomington five years ago, died Oct. 6 from gastric cancer. He was 92.

Klindworth's communications career began in his native Zumbro Falls "after climbing a water tower to install antennas that would receive broadcast signals from Minneapolis," the Denver-based Cable Center noted of its 2008 Hall of Fame inductee.

From there, Klindworth started his own company in 1957 and flew a private airplane around greater Minnesota, finding points hundreds of feet above ground for high-frequency translators that pulled in TV programming from the Twin Cities to living rooms in Redwood Falls, Bird Island, St. James and elsewhere.

But it was the fledgling cable industry that caught his eye and had him on the move to more far-flung destinations in the years ahead.

"I noticed other markets could use cable, so I started building and operating systems in rural Minnesota," Klindworth said when he was inducted. "Then, I began to meet the challenges of very difficult signal reception areas like the Caribbean, New Zealand and other remote areas void of TV. … I was able to look beyond broadcast TV in the Midwest and see the rest of the U.S. and eventually the world."

"Mr. Klindworth made a lasting impact on St. Croix and the Virgin Islands during his years on the island," said Gov. John P. de Jongh Jr. "He established St. Croix Cable TV and … will be remembered as a pioneer in the cable television industry, an avid sailor and lifelong traveler, and a beloved husband, father and grandfather."

Klindworth was awarded the franchise for cable television services on St. Croix in the early 1980s and went on to build a system that served the entire island. He expanded to similar enterprises in the nearby British Virgin Islands and St. Marten. In all, his work in cable TV spread to nine countries.

Tamie Campbell said her father "was a guy who would see a need and kind of fill it. If you said you couldn't do something, he'd say, 'Why not?' "

Upon retirement, Klindworth and his wife of 63 years, Wanda June, went on a five-year sailing trip that began in the late 1990s and straddled a change in millenniums.

With various crews around the world assisting with the navigation, the Klindworths and their 110-foot yacht pushed off from the U.S. Virgin Islands and counted the fjords of Norway, the Galápagos Islands, Australia and the Panama Canal among their many stops.

Klindworth served in the Navy from 1940-1946 as a specialist in radar development and special-use TV equipment. Afterward, he graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in electrical engineering.