R.I.P., Ken Calvert
Yesterday afternoon I received a text message from a friend on local TV asking me when we were going to announce Ken Calvert’s passing. It was one of the text messages that you don’t like to receive. At the time I hadn’t heard the news yet and was kind of blindsided. Well, it was confirmed a couple of hours later when I got a call in the studio. We’d lost K.C..
I’ll just describe the Casual One I knew like this – a good guy. He never showed an ego towards me, and always showed me respect, which of course went both ways. Ken was a great storyteller. I always knew that, but it was cemented when I heard him on the History of WRIF 50th anniversary podcast that he recorded with Mike Staff. Part of that skill was HAVING great stories, and that he did. Many of them came with his vast history of radio in Detroit. You can listen to that fantastic conversation here.
I never worked with Ken directly, just from afar. He was always on another station, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn from him. Like many whom I never had the privilege of working side by side, I listened and took away little bits and pieces here and there. Ken was one of those guys.
Ken often told the story of how I helped him into the station after he had back surgery. He said that showed what kind of guy I was to help him from the parking lot to the studio. I didn’t think much of it at the time, nor do I now, I was trying to make life a little bit easier for someone I truly liked and admired.
There’s an old saying that you die twice. Once on the day your heart stops beating, and the second on the day your name is spoken for the last time. I have a feeling K.C. will be alive in our hearts for a long time to come. Get ready for an avalanche of great Ken Calvert stories.
My deepest thoughts and prayers go out to his immediate family and his huge radio family. He made an immense impact on me, and the city he loved.
Rest easy, my friend…Meltdown
Remembering Ken Calvert
