Among the news and historical posts here, I still like to sometimes share some personal reflection, and today seems like a good day for a bit of that. I think no matter our age, we all have our list of favorite radio jocks we grew up listening to - people who entertained us, took our calls and played our requests, or were simply part of our lives. They were always there, in a time before we understood that formats change and radio personalities come and go.
I've mentioned before that my "favorites as a kid" list comes from the mid/late 90s, and my list has a ton of names, as you might imagine. Today though, I think of a certain childhood favorite - Dave Munday - because today marks the two year anniversary of his passing.
If you've read the site for a while, or followed us on Twitter, you probably know I have a huge affinity for live weekend radio. In large part, that started with Dave (and others, like Jon Anthony and "Katfish" Kris Kelly) doing weekends at Mix 93.3 in its early days. I was a kid, and didn't grasp all the experience that weekend staff had - I just thought they must really love radio to work on weekends.
Take one look at the call letters Dave served over the years... The list reads like a who's who of important KC stations: KYYS. KFKF. KUDL and KMXV. KWKI, KLSI, KBEQ (in the top 40 days), KCFX, and KCMO-F (both Oldies 95 and 94-9 KCMO) are all there. And I'm sure there's more I don't know about. (Did I read once he was at KSAS at some point?) And he was known for his voice work too - especially as the announcer of Kansas Speedway, and the voice of Price Chopper (which helped me first understand the concept of voiceover talent, in fact).
I'd love to share some of his audio, but don't have much unfortunately. I wish I'd grabbed the great tribute Dick Wilson & Dr. Don Daniels did when he passed, or that I could find some old tapes of his stuff. Though really, even without much tape on him, I can still hear his voice. Here he is in the one recording I have, from the KY 25th anniversary in summer 1999, reminiscing with Katfish, K.C., Randy and some of the other KY jocks...
I never knew him (was just starting research for BKC when he passed), but like all the great jocks, he made me feel like he did. Always seemed so genuine & passionate about radio and the listeners. And always made the day just a little bit better by being there.
When Dave died, his former KCMO collegue Mike McCartney blogged that, "Dave was one of those guys who it seemed you just couldn't rattle. Always in a good mood, always a positive attitude. Dave simply loved broadcasting and radio, in fact he was one of those guys who had a true 'smile' when he was on the air. A real pro."
Everything Mike said showed through to me, from listening every weekend on my Walkman in the 90s, to following him to overnights & nights at 94-9 for much of the last decade. He made radio fun, and helped to get me hooked, one weekend at a time. As far as I know, he's the first of the jocks I grew up with to pass, which makes it all the more sad.
Whenever I turn on a jockless station during the weekend, or hear KCMO on auto-pilot in nights & overnights, I can't help but think one thing. The one thing I've thought all day.
Rebuilding the site has taken longer than I expected, so taking that into consideration, I'm going to post Weekly Radio Recaps here again, until we're able to get the new site up & running. The last month of updates does no one any good sitting on the new site that you can't see yet... So now, the news...
RICHARD WARD FATHERLEY PASSES -- The week got off to a sad start with Monday's passing of legendary radio talent, historian, and voice talent Richard Ward Fatherley. To read more on Fatherley's career, and remembrances from a few of his colleagues, please see our tribute HERE. Funeral services will take place this Friday, March 19, at St. Agnes Church, 5250 Mission Road, Roeland Park, KS. Visitation will be held from 9:30AM to 10:30AM, Eulogies from 10:30AM to 11:00AM, and Funeral Mass at 11:00AM.
CHANGES FOR WALT BODINE SHOW -- Since joining then KMBC-AM in 1945, Walt Bodine has become a Kansas City institution, so much so that an attempted 1996 cancellation of his daily KCUR program caused a vocal community backlash. This past week, however, a far more amicable transition was announced for the program. In a memo released on Tuesday, KCUR Program Director Bill Anderson explains that upon returning from vacation, Bodine will transition to hosting Friday shows only, plus being involved with special features for the station's Morning Edition program. As for the other four days of "The Walt Bodine Show" each week, other KCUR personalities will share hosting duties.
103-7 THE LEPRECHAUN LAUNCHES -- So, you're about to flip the switch on a translator originally purchased to help fill gaps in the coverage of your classic rocker - how do you generate a little buzz in the process? Well, if you're Cumulus, you fire it up shortly before St. Patrick's Day with Irish/Celtic music, and brand it "103-7 the Leprechaun." The translator (K225AW), which we told you last fall was purchased for $31,500 to fill in coverage gaps for KCFX, signed on Friday at 250 watts power. The new station IDs as K225AW and KCFX HD2, so if you have an HD radio you can probably pick up the signal there as well. Presumably the format will change after St. Patrick's Day - but apparently not to a simulcast of KCFX. Stay tuned...
NICK WRIGHT GETS KCSP AFTERNOONS -- KCSP mid-morning host Nick Wright has been promoted to afternoon drive at 610 Sports Radio, and will begin his new 2-6PM duties on or around April 1st. Reliable sources informed BroadcastKC of the move after it was made official on Friday. No word yet on what will replace "What's Wright" in the 9AM to 11AM slot.
The new assignment for the 25-year-old Wright continues a recent KCSP pattern of promotion from within, which you may recall began with the now defunct "Chris and Cowboy" show. That program began in 2005, holding down the night shift, before moving to mid-mornings in 2008. Last April, three months after the arrival of current program director Ryan Maguire, "Chris and Cowboy" moved to afternoons, and Wright, who was then hosting nights, was upped to mid-mornings.
Wright, a three-year KCSP veteran, becomes the latest combatant to go head to head with WHB afternoon stalwart and part-owner Kevin Kietzman. He follows the aforementioned tandem of Chris Hamblin and "Cowboy" Cory Anderson, whose afternoon show began a year ago next month, but disbanded in February. The station has not sat idle since the beginning of 2010; in addition to these more recent changes, KCSP also debuted a new morning show featuring WHB alum Bob Fescoe in early January.
MICHAELS BANS 119-WORDS/PHRASES -- In the late 1970s, Randy Michaels came to Kansas City and, along with Ted Cramer, devised the formula for AM powerhouse 61 Country. These days, Michaels is still building formulas as CEO of The Tribune Co. - with his latest being a list of words banned from newscasts on the company's flagship WGN-AM. In an internal memo leaked to longtime Chicago media critic Robert Feder, WGN News Director Charlie Meyerson explains that the words are "forbidden," stating flatly, "Don't say them on WGN."
While many of the listed words/phrases seem to make sense, the biggest reaction seems to be that the list came from the company's CEO (at a time when Tribune is going through bankruptcy), and that the memo also came with "Bingo cards" for station employees to note infractions and turn in co-workers who use the forbidden words. To see the complete list, CLICK HERE, and you can find Feder's Sunday night follow-up on an angry post-leak staff meeting HERE.
STERRETT LEAVES HOUSTON FOR DALLAS -- You may remember Will Sterrett, former weekender at KFME, and airtalent at Premier's Mid-Missouri cluster a few years back. This past week he vacated his Assistant News Director/Anchor positions at KTRH-A/Houston, and will move to Dallas in order to become an anchor at KRLD-A.
That does it for now, but we'll be back again before you know it... trust us. Have an excellent week!
We regret to share that legendary radio personality, historian, and voiceover talent Richard Ward Fatherley has passed. Fatherley, who had suffered a heart attack February 14th, passed away Monday afternoon at St. Margaret's Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas. Services are pending, and when information becomes available, we will post it here.
Fatherley's distinguished radio career began in 1959 at WSTC-AM, a then 250-watt daytimer serving Stamford, CT. He would remain in the northeast for the next five years, mostly in Connecticut, though he did spend a short time at WABC in New York City during 1961. It was in 1964, when Fatherley would begin his association with Storz Broadcasting, as he joined the company's KXOK in St. Louis. (Click HERE for a page featuring an audio introduction by Fatherley.) The union was formed a year after the death of Top 40 pioneer Todd Storz, whose life and career Fatherley would begin researching early in his tenure.
In St. Louis, Fatherley's future as radio historian would first be foreshadowed. In 1965, he began a promotional brochure for Storz, and though the project wasn't completed at the time, it would serve as the starting point for his audio history "Radio's Revolution & The World's Happiest Broadcasters" when he rediscovered it in the mid-90s. Also at KXOK, Fatherley would take the time to record some 8mm footage of the station's location and events, a portion of which has been digitized by the folks at stlmedia.net. In the silent clip below, you can see the station's Radio Park signage (which inspired the same on-air brand at Kansas City's KCKN), and even a clip of Fatherley himself in his KXOK baseball uniform.
Since the fall of 1967, Fatherley's legendary voice has been a Kansas City institution. He began here with a transfer from KXOK to Storz's Kansas City outlet, WHB-AM. Following two years as WHB's Program Director, he went on to have a hand in numerous other local stations, including WDAF-AM, KLTH, KEXS, KFEZ, and even KYYS, where he did sales in the earliest days of KY-102. With his authoritative voice, Fatherley was an in-demand voice-over talent for many years through his firm AdVoice LLC. Among his long list of clients were numerous local and national businesses, radio stations who utilized him as their imaging voice, and many charities, for whom he was always willing to provide his services at no charge.
In addition to his voicework, Fatherley contributed immesurable time and energy in recent years to documenting and preserving the history of Kansas City radio and the Top 40 format. In April 1993, Fatherley took part in the WHB 71st Anniversary celebration (see audio below), where fellow WHB alum Jim Moore called him, "the greatest voice this market has ever had." By the end of the decade, he had completed his audio production "Radio's Revolution & the World's Happiest Broadcasters" (in the process, shedding light the previously un-resolved birthplace of the Top 40 format). He also developed a website to pay tribute to WHB.
In recent years, Fatherley had produced audio productions that featured other legendary Kansas City talent, like Max Floyd, Walt Bodine, and Ted Cramer. He played a leading role in the Great Plains Radio History Symposium, and at the time of his death, was writing a book to chronical the history of WHB from its beginnings to the present day. In 2005/2006, he was honored with induction into the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame.
Along with his friends and family, Richard leaves behind a loving and devoted radio family, both in Kansas City and St. Louis, and scattered throughout the country. Some of them have already contacted us to share their thoughts and memories...
Updated 03/10/10 -- We've updated the post with additional feedback, so please click the "Read More" button for thoughts and tributes to our late friend. You can also leave your own thoughts and memories in the comments below (sign-up and log-in no longer required).
Updated 03/12/10 -- Funeral information and additional feedback have been added to this post.
