On Dec. 1, 1952, KGMB became the first TV station in the islands to go on air. The first news anchor for the station was Bob Jensen. This month we look back at Jensen, his time in Hawaii and what happened to him after he left the islands.

Jensen was born in Chicago on May 19, 1921. He grew up on the South Side of Chicago and attended high school there. After high school graduation, Jensen served in the Navy. He married Bette Beebe, and they had two sons on the mainland. The Jensens relocated to Honolulu in the late 1940s to start a radio station, which would eventually become known as KAIM. Jensen helped start the station with some friends from the Chicago area.

The Jensens lived in Kailua. “I know our first house was on Wailepo Street and the second house was on Kainalu,” said daughter Shirley Nalani Jensen, who was born in December 1949 in Honolulu.

Jensen worked part time at KGMB television with a variety of jobs including doing on-air commercials and hosting kids’ shows, including “Uncle Bob’s Storybook Fair Club.”

Jensen anchored the original “Pan American World News” on KGMB. The newscast aired weekdays from 6 to 6:15 p.m. An entire newscast including news, weather and sports was squeezed into 15 minutes of airtime. There was no 10 p.m. news at the time, nor were there any newscasts on weekends. Other than a five-minute newscast at 2 p.m. when KGMB signed on for its daily programming, the 6 p.m. newscast was the extent of reporting for the day.

Jensen also kept himself busy volunteering with the Honolulu Police Department at night.

On the Fourth of July in 1953, Jensen and friend Carl “Chris” Christiansen went fishing. Their 21-foot boat, Cindy Lou, had engine problems, and they were adrift for two days. They were eventually found by the Coast Guard cutter Richey in rough seas and were towed back to Haleiwa. The rescue coverage made news in both the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and The Honolulu Advertiser.

The next day Jensen was back on the air anchoring the 6 p.m. news.

During the fall of 1953, Wayne Collins replaced Jensen as KGMB anchor.

Jensen continued to run KAIM radio in Honolulu, but in 1957 he moved his family to Texas. “Sometime during the summer of 1957, we took the Lurline to the mainland. We traveled through many states visiting friends and relatives and ended up in Corpus Christi, Texas,” said Shirley Jensen.

In the mid-1960s Jensen moved to Denver where he worked as a general manager at various radio stations. During this time he got divorced and married Dorothy Green.

Jensen embarked on a new business venture during the early 1980s, helping start a Christian radio station in Anguilla, a British territory in the Caribbean. The station would be called the Caribbean Beacon.

On Oct. 20, 1982, Jensen and his wife took a business trip aboard an island commuter plane that was en route from Anguilla to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The flight was intended to be a 45-minute trip. The flight disappeared, and it was assumed that it went down into the Atlantic Ocean. Search efforts were suspended three days later after there was no sign of the plane or the eight occupants.

Pilots who had flown in the area on the date of the accident reported that there was a series of thunderstorms with heavy rain in the St. Martin and Antigua area.

The Piper PA-31 Navajo plane, operated by Carib Air Service, that Jensen was on that day is listed as among the many planes lost in the mysterious Bermuda Triangle.