KRIB KRIB KRIB (1490 AM) is a radio station licensed to serve Mason City, Iowa. The station is owned by Digity, LLC, and licensed to Digity 3E License, LLC. It airs an Adult Standards music format. KRIB was one of the first radio stations in Iowa to play Rock and Roll in the mid-1950s and garnered all of the young audience. KRIB is also the radio station that was one of the sponsors of the Winter Dance Party at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa in February 1959 featuring The Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly, which ended that
Ritchie Valens for Dion as Dion's drummer had frostbitten feet. After the February 2, 1959, performance in Clear Lake, Iowa (which ended around midnight), Holly, Richardson, and Valens flew out of the Mason City airport in a small plane that Holly had chartered. Valens was on the plane because he won a coin toss with Holly's backup guitarist Tommy Allsup. Holly's bassist, Waylon Jennings, voluntarily gave up his seat on the plane to J.P. Richardson, who was ill with the flu. Just after 1:00 am on February 3, 1959, the three-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza departed for Fargo, North Dakota, and crashed a few