I’ve been away from the office a little this week because our 100-year old aunt from Waco passed away on Monday. So on Tuesday we spent a half a day with the funeral directors planning the service for later this week. Her passing made me once again pause and reflect on how precious life is and to live each day to the fullest.

In the DFW radio/television industry, we lost a few folks this year.

Russ Knight, aka “The Weird Beard”, was a evening radio personality for Gordon McLendon’s KLIF. Knight had the most energetic and witty delivery, using sound effects and voice characterizations. I grew up listening to him as a kid without knowing that this man had a master’s degree in journalism .

We lost Dick Siegel in December. Dick was a long time DFW radio personality best known for doing traffic and cutting up with Hal Jay on WBAP 820. For years WBAP was a country station but then started to transition more to news/talk which is their format today. Hal and Dick made a great team. Dick passed away doing what he loved and that was spinning the oldies on KLDE down in the Texas Hill Country.

Alex Burton was a longtime newsman on WBAP-TV (now KXAS-TV) and KRLD-TV (now KDFW FOX 4) and later on NewsRadio 1080 KRLD and WBAP Radio. He also was on KDFI-TV for a short period of time. In 2011, the Dallas Press Club honored him as a “Living Legend”. His famous line was, “I’m Alex Burton….and the opinions are my own.” Burton passed away this past September.

Larry Shannon, founder of the Texas Radio Hall Of Fame and former radio disc jockey, passed away in August. He had been battling cancer but never told anyone about it because he didn’t want you to worry about him. Larry founded the TRHOF to pay tribute to those men and women who made radio great, two of which that come to mind being Ron Chapman and CBS Radio’s Jody Dean from KLUV-FM.

Russ, Dick, Alex, and Larry, thank you for your contributions to DFW radio and TV. We’ll see you again one day.

See you next time.

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