Badger State radio personalities dominated the recognition portion of last week’s Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Summer Conference in Sheboygan, Wis.
Selected for the Wisconsin Broadcasters Hall of Fame were Jack Mitchell and Wayne Larrivee. Mitchell can lay claim to fame by being the first employee of National Public Radio. He became the original producer and newscaster of “All Things Considered” before moving to a lengthy career at Wisconsin Public Radio.
Wayne Larrivee has an extensive background in sports radio, mostly as a play-by-play man. He has been doing Green Bay Packers football games since 1999.
On the Local Broadcast Legends ledger, Karen Dalessandro, Peter Murphy, Bill McCollum and John Moser were cited.
Karen Dalessandro was a familiar voice in Milwaukee radio at WMIL, WKTI and WKLH along leading on a number of high-profile charitable drives. She was also a two-time winner of the Country Music Association’s Broadcasting Personality of the Year award, 2001 and 2015.
The late Peter Murphy is credited with “hosting the first live radio talk show by telephone in the nation.” He also did a live segment from a Blue Angels jet in 1976. He spent decades at WEAQ in Eau Claire in management and as host of the long-running “The Party Line” talk show.
Bill McCollum and John Moser have dominated Beaver Dam, Wis., radio for almost 100 years, most of it together as a team for “The Morning Show” on WBEV and WXRO. In addition, McCollum was usually the stations’ top-biller in sales while Moser had stints as news director, program director, sales manager and general manager at one time or another. Not surprisingly, both were well-known for their charitable involvement in local and regional causes.
