Except perhaps for very young listeners in the Rubber City, the name Jerry Healey invokes many memories of Akron's WAKR/1590.
Word is coming in that the former WAKR mainstay has passed away "peacefully" near his Southern California home.
Quoting his obituary, which an OMW reader passed along to us this morning:
The dominant areas of Healey's career were as a sports broadcaster and as a radio morning show host. A product of Syracuse University, he was the voice of football for the University of Illinois, Ohio State, the University of Akron, Kent State University, and UC Davis. In basketball, he was the voice for the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Buffalo Braves. His popular morning shows for WAKR in the late 60's and 70's were unique for the inclusion of two `alter egos', Sam and Serena, voices and personalities which he totally fabricated daily. In Los Angeles, he was part of the original TranStar/UniStar team, at one time broadcasting American standards music to over 200 markets.
In addition to Healey's time at WAKR locally, that syndicated radio job later placed him on his old radio home via satellite, when WAKR ran the Westwood One Adult Standards format before transitioning off the feed for its own local standards, now oldies, music format.
The obituary says Healey was born in Scranton PA in 1932, and started his radio career as a youngster on a Philadelphia children's radio program...
Thursday, February 05, 2009
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1 comment:
Very sad loss. When I was between my sophomore and junior years at Kent State, Jerry Healey hired me for my first paying job in broadcasting. I split time between running the board on weekends and walking around at Akron-area events with a WCUE sandwich board. Jerry was a classy guy.
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