Craig Kepner had embarked on a career as an electrical engineer when he decided the legal profession offered a more challenging future.
So he enrolled in the College of Law at the University of Arizona, where he had studied earlier in the College of Engineering.
Kepner earned his law degree and was admitted to the State Bar of Arizona in 1964. He is a partner in teh Phoenix law firm of Jennings, Kepner and Haug, with offices at 2800 N. Central.
Along the way, the St. Paul, Minnesota, native qualified for an amateur radio license and at age 14 was operating his own “ham” station, WQCC. He acquired a first class radio-television license at age 15. The latter permitted him to work as an engineer for a commercial station, KDSJ, in Deadwood, South Dakota, and for KOTA-TV in Rapid City, South Dakota, before he finished high school. He has also been an inventor, a radio announcer and a disc jockey.
Craig Raymond Kepner was born June 14, 1939, son of Raymond J. Kepner and Elsie Lindell Kepner. His father, of German descent, was born in Holloway, Minnesota, July 27, 1917, while his mother, of Sweedish descent, was born in Unityville, South Dakota, July 2, 1912. The couple, now of Tucson, also have a daughter, Carolyn Filley, of Houston, Texas.
Kepner went through the first four grades in a school in St. Paul, then studied for two years in a one-room, one teacher, country school near St. Elmo, Minnesota. He was in the seventh and eighth grades in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, He attended high school in Lead, South Dakota, for three years, then completed his senior year and graduated form high school in Rapid City, South Dakota in 1956.
In High School, he played the cornet in the school band, but his gretest interest was in things scientific - especially electronics. During his senior year, his Science Fair project won him a trip to the National Science Fair in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Kepner says his project, called a television flying spot scanner, “was a way of putting transparent pictures on a television screen.”
His father, who had been a ski maker in North St. Paul, a newspaper distributor in Wisconsin and a gold miner in Lead, brought the family to Tucson, in mid-1956, and found employment at the Magma Copper Company mine in San Manuel.
Craig Kepner enrolled in the University of Arizona that September and earned his way working at various broadcasting stations - sometimes two stations on the same day. He was an engineer at KCNA, and at KVOA, KVOA-TV. He was an announcer, disc jockey and engineer at KCEE; and an engineer at KTKT. As an engineer for KGUN-TV, he commuted to the transmitter atop 8,000 foot Bigelow Peak.
“I wasn’t one of these featured personalities,” Kepner says of his disc jockey years. “The broadcasts were more sedate. I would read the news and announce the title of the records we played.”
In 1959, Kepner earned his private pilot’s license and in 1960, he graduated from the University of Arizona with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering.
Armed with the degree, he found employment as an engineer with Philco Western (now Philco Ford) Development Laboratories, in Mountain View, California. His projects included work on early satellite technology.
A few months later he returned to Arizona as an electrical engineer for Goodyear Aerospace at Goodyear. The work involved a radar system for the proposed Air Force bomber, B-70.
Kepner isn’t sure how it came about, but in the summer of 1961 he “got the idea I wanted to go to law school. My dad thought it was a crazy idea, but my parents took me back in their home in Tuscon and I enrolled in the college of Law in September, 1961.”
To pay his way the first two years, Kepner returned to radio engineering and announcing - at KFIF, a 50,000 watt station.
On July 6, 1963, Craig Kepner and Elizabeth Jane Bonnar were married in the First Congregational Church of Middleboro, Massachusetts. Born March 25, 1939, she is the daughter of Dr. James M Bonnar and Lillian Wayne Bonnar, now of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts.
The two had been introduced in 1962, by Dino Natta, then a classmate of Craig and a bus driver at the Arizona State School for the Deaf and Blind, where Elizabeth was a teacher.
“I took her flying on one of our first dates,” Kepner said. “It was her first flight in a small plane.”
Also in the summer of 1963, Kepner worked as a law clerk for the Phoenix law firm of Moore, Romley, Kaplan, Robbins & Green.
Elizabeth was the family’s “bread winner” during Craig’s third year of law school. That year, 1963-64, he was on the editorial board of the Arizona Law Review and was a member of the Moot Court team.
“We won the regional competition and a trip to the National Moot Court in New York City,” Kepner said. “I believe we were only the second team from the University of Arizona to go to the National.”
After graduation from the College of Law in May, 1964, Kepner took the bar exam in July, 1964, and was admitted to the State Bar of Arizona in September. He also worked a year clerking for Chief Justice Jesse Udall of the Arizona Supreme Court.
In mid 1965 he joined the Moore, Romley firm. five years later he became a partner.
In 1982 the firm name was changed to Jennings, Kepner & Haug.
While in law school, Kepner received an award for his scholarship in insurance law. In his practice, insurance law is his specialty.
He was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court January 24, 1972, and is a founding fellow of the Arizona Bar Foundation.
His most “hair-raising” experience - which he now laughs about - took place in Baja California, Mexico, in 1969, when his rented airplane was involved in a minor crash while he was on a fishing trip.
“We - three other lawyers and myself - were not injured, but we were not allowed to leave the area until a friend brought a notorized paper from the plane’s owner saying it was alright.” Kepner said.
He has continued as an active pilot and is a member of the Aircraft Owners & Pilots’ Association. Also, he is still a radio “ham” as the operator of Station W7FQY and as a member of the American Radio Relay League.
The Kepners have three children, all natives of Phoenix. They are: Todd Stephen Kepner, born May 29, 1966; Scott Michael Kepner, born June 22, 1968, and Julie Anne Kepner, born October, 1, 1969.
He has a personal computer in his office and his favorite pastime is developing general business data-base software, using some of his engineering skills.6