Gus Gikas passed away in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on September 22, 2020, at the age of 99. He was born April 20, 1921, in Lincoln, Nebraska, the oldest of six children of Greek immigrant parents, Aphrodite Coronis and Nestor K. Gikas. He was raised in the oil boomtown of Borger, Texas, where as a youth, he learned to repair radios and became a HAM radio operator (call sign W5HRF), keeping his license for more than 80 years.