Ron Smith, the “Voice of Reason” on WBAL radio, dead at 70
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By Kevin Dayhoff,
December 21, 2011
Ron Smith, 70,the highly celebrated radio talk show host on
1090 AM WBAL talk radio for 26 years, died of pancreatic cancer last Monday
night at his home in Shrewsbury, Pa.
Generations of Carroll countians have grown-up listening to Smith
– and 1090 WBAL radio, long before he joined the station in the fall of 1984.
David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun’s media critic since 1989, noted
late Monday night that “Mr. Smith spent more than 26 years on WBAL's
airwaves, most of it in the afternoon drive-time period until a move to
mornings last year, passionately talking politics from a conservative point of
view.”
Zurawik explains the ‘Voice of Reason’ title came from a
listener, according to Smith’s wife, June; “A caller, responding to one of
Ron’s rants on the constant struggle between various theories and the hard,
cold, facts of reality, said, ‘You are The Voice of Reason.’ ” The term stuck.
Zurawik wrote the thoughts of many. “But it is not his
politics for which he will likely be remembered as much as the informed
conversation he helped create on Baltimore radio — and the way he publicly
shared his final days with listeners of WBAL and readers of The Baltimore Sun.”
Although he is reported to have been well-read and highly
educated, many will be surprised to know that Smith “dropped out of high school
at age 17 and joined the Marines,” according to Zurawik. “He was in the Marines
from 1959 to 1962, his last duty serving at a Navy submarine base in New
London, Conn…
“After the Marines, Mr. Smith started working in community
theater in Albany, N.Y., near his hometown of Troy, while he ‘tried to figure
out’ what he wanted to do…
“Mr. Smith's first broadcasting job was as a disc jockey in
Haverhill, MA. He didn't like the station, but he liked being on the air. He
returned to Albany and eventually landed a radio and TV reporting job at WTEN.
He was at that station five years…”
Before his longstanding stint with WBAL radio, Carroll
countians first got to know Smith when he first arrived in Baltimore on TV – on
Channel 11’s “Action News,” in 1973. He was on the air as a reporter and then
its weekend anchor until 1980, when “he was unceremoniously dumped in an anchor
desk shuffle…,” according to Zurawik.
According to his official biography, “Ron was a TV anchor
and reporter for WBAL-TV until 1980, when new management decided to make a
change in his department by getting rid of him.
“They parted by ‘mutual consent,’ which is when your bosses
decided you’ve got to go and you agree there’s nothing much you can do about
it.”
In 1980 “Mr. Smith went to work full time as a stockbroker,”
explained The Baltimore Sun article. “But he never lost the desire to be on
air. And while he claimed to enjoy working in the financial world, it was all
prelude for the passion he found as a talk-show host starting part-time in 1984
and full time a year later on WBAL radio...”
The rest is history… However, the history of WBAL and
Carroll County can arguably go back as far as when it first went on the air in
1925. It was started as a subsidiary of the old Consolidated Gas Electric Light
and Power Company, now known as Baltimore Gas Electric – Constellation Energy.
That was eight years before The Consolidated Public
Utilities Company of Westminster merged with the Consolidated Gas Electric
Light and Power Company, in 1933. The Westminster power company can trace its
roots back to 1867, when it first formed as the Westminster Gas Light Co.
One of the first mentions of WBAL radio in Carroll County is
brought to our attention as a result of research by the Historical Society of
Carroll County. On June 8, 1945, the now out-of-print Westminster newspaper,
the Democratic Advocate reported, “Sykesville high school students will
broadcast over station WBAL, Baltimore, on Saturday, June 9, at 4 p.m. The skit
which they will dramatize is called ‘After the War —then What?’”
The same newspaper reported on February 1, 1946, “The
Baltimore Radio Broadcasting Station, WBAL, will bring the well known program
"Junior Town Meeting of the Air" to Westminster in a broadcast at
Westminster High School on Tuesday, February 5th, from 1:30 to 2 p.m. The
subject to be discussed will be "Is American Family Life
Deteriorating"? Local students will present their views direct from the
school to your home.”
On February 8, 1947, the newspaper reported, “Westminster
and the surrounding community was very much interested in the Junior Town
Meeting broadcasted over Station WBAL on Tuesday afternoon… In summing up the
half-hour discussion, Mr. (Mike) Eaton said that he felt the main point had
been brought out by Thomas Holmes, Jr., when he said, ‘These things we have
said put forth a challenge, a challenge to us; the teen agers of today, who
will in the near future have families of their own, and also should strive to
rebuild and protect our American Family Life.’ ”
Several decades later, Smith brought back the conversation
about protecting “our American Family Life,” to the radio in our homes, offices,
and automobiles.
Zurawik noted in the Baltimore Sun, “According to Ed
Kiernan, longtime general manager of WBAL, ‘a voracious reader, Ron Smith
arrived at his opinions after careful thought and research. He arrived early to
work always prepared and excited to get behind the microphone.’ ”
Smith, “died at his home … surrounded by his wife, June, and
the rest of his family,” according to a report by WBAL-TV.
“Funeral services will be private. A public memorial service will be scheduled
at a later date.”
Smith’s passing leaves a lot of “dead air” in an
intelligent, uncomplicated, “everyman” approach to the news and events of the
day. He will be missed. Semper Fi.
*****
