Radio broadcaster Laura Ellen Hopper, who helped pioneer radio-Internet programming, has died in Santa Cruz, Calif., from lung cancer.

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Hopper, 57, died just days after learning that she had lung cancer, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

"She absolutely was a visionary and was just determined to stay true to her beliefs of how radio should be, particularly the Americana format that is truly her legacy," Ed Monroe, the marketing manager of Hopper's station, KPIG, told the Times.

"You'd have to say she started the genre," KPIG deejay "Sleepy" John Sandidge told the San Jose Mercury News. "She was the first to play Americana music on the radio."

KPIG became one of the first radio stations to simulcast on the Internet in 1995 with its broadcast of a local "No Nukes" concert.

Hopper is survived by her husband, Frank Caprista, as well as a daughter, Elsie Lansman; her parents, Gordon and Dorothy Hopper; and four sisters.