SEQUIM — Approaching his 90th birthday, “Classy” Bob Massey may well be the oldest active on-air radio announcer in the country, and KSQM is preparing to celebrate the senior radio host’s entry into his 10th decade of life.
Massey, a 13-year resident of Sequim, has been in radio since 1945 — a career spanning 70 years that has seen the rise of bebop, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, rock and roll, pop, disco and rap; and the transitions from radio tubes to transistors to microchips.
Massey’s current radio show, “The Best Music Ever Made” runs from 9 a.m. to noon, Mondays through Fridays on Sequim-based KSQM FM 91.5, streaming live on www.KSQMFM.com.
On Monday, the show will be followed by Massey’s 90th birthday celebration and a station open house at 2 p.m. at the KSQM broadcast studio, 577 W. Washington St.
There are no known active broadcasters older than Massey currently on the air in the U.S., according to Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications and Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago.
Bob Wolff, a 94-year-old Washington, D.C., sportscaster, still makes guest appearances but no longer has a regular broadcast schedule, DuMont said.
“He is the only competition [for oldest broadcaster] that I know of,” he said.
Len Goorian, 95, a broadcaster in the Cincinnati area, recently departed from a show he co-hosted with his daughter, Viva Goorian.
Massey was born in Rutherford, Tenn., on March 9, 1925, just five years after the first U.S. commercial broadcast station, KDKA, came on the air Nov. 2, 1920, in East Pittsburg, Pa.
He was raised in Nashville, Tenn., and when he graduated from high school in 1943, he was drafted into the Army and was initially assigned as an “infantry replacement” in General George S. Patton’s Third Army in Germany.
He was then was sent to Marseilles, France, where he discovered an application for Armed Forces Radio.
His application for transfer to the military radio broadcast unit was approved, and he was transferred to an Armed Forces Radio station in Frankfurt, Germany, to provide American style entertainment to troops stationed in the war-torn country, Massey said.
“It was good duty,” he said.
In 1947 Massey completed his enlistment, departed Armed Forces Radio and was hired by WJNO in Palm Beach, Fla.
He spent seven years in Florida at five radio stations before relocating to the Pacific Northwest.
In 1963 Massey moved to Anchorage, Alaska, where he landed a job as a broadcaster at KHAR Radio.
A year later, on March 27, 1964, the city was hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, a 9.2 magnitude “megathrust” temblor that destroyed much of the city.
Massey said he had just begun his on-air shift when the quake hit.
“I was right in the middle of it. Everything started falling over. We ran out the back door into the parking lot. We could barely stand,” he said.
Massey said he and his colleagues felt lucky that the tsunami generated by the earthquake did not hit the crippled town.
“The devastation in the downtown area was phenomenal,” he said.
The radio station was knocked off the air by the quake, and it was about a day before power was restored and the station could begin broadcasting notices to area residents.
He remained in Anchorage until 1970, when the Massey family moved to Yakima for a job at KIT Radio then on to Tacoma to work at KBRD.
Massey retired to Sequim in 1992 to care for his wife, Margaret Massey, during a long illness, but after her death in 2006, he found himself drawn back to radio.
“Bob Massey first opened the KSQM microphone on the afternoon of Dec. 7, 2008, and has been the foundation, the very heart and soul of this community radio,” said Jeff Bankston, vice president of Sequim Community Broadcasting, which owns KSQM.
Rick Perry, founder of KSQM, welcomed Bob Massey on board at the very start, Bankston said.
While Massey started his career with turntables and records, today he works with CDs and computers.
However, while the technology has changed, Massey still selects from the greatest hits and best of the lesser known music of the 1940s through the ’60s.
“My goal for my listeners is to brighten their day, to make theirs go a little easier,” Massey said.
For more information about KSQM or the celebration, phone the station at 360-681-0000.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
