A spectator at the Iditarod, an annual sled dog race in Alaska, had bought an obstructed-view seat. His view, as Dick Purtan and his daughters remembe
A spectator at the Iditarod, an annual sled dog race in Alaska, had bought an obstructed-view seat. His view, as Dick Purtan and his daughters remembered it, was the back of a tree. The report came from “Howard Cosell,” played by the gifted impressionist Joe Noune. Purtan kept asking questions, as though there were nothing unusual about buying a ticket to sit behind a tree at a sled-dog race. That straight face was as much a part of the joke as the voice on the other end of the conversation.
When Dick, Jackie and JoAnne Purtan joined me for the USA Radio Museum, they were still laughing about it. Over 45 years on Detroit radio, Dick made room for people who could take a premise that silly and make listeners see the whole thing. In our conversation, the Purtans recalled how they wrote those sketches, what it took to make Dick break up on the air, and why the same listeners who tuned in for a laugh kept showing up for the Salvation Army.
Here is Jim Hampton’s Interview with Dick, Jackie and JoAnne Purtan.
From Guy King to Keener 13
The Keener 13 days
Purtan remembered starting out at Buffalo’s WWOL as “Guy King,” a name the station used for whoever took the afternoon shift. One name, one jingle, I suggested. “They saved a lot of money that way,” he said.
His early radio stops included WOLF in Syracuse and WSAI in Cincinnati. At WSAI in 1964, before he became Dick Purtan on Detroit radio, he was Paul Purtan at Cincinnati’s WSAI, one of five disc jockeys who each put up $5,000 of their own money to bring the Beatles to town. After seeing the band on The Ed Sullivan Show, the DJs sent a telegram to England asking for a date. The booking came through at $25,000, and Purtan turned to concert promoter Dino Santangelo, whom he knew from the National Guard, to produce the show. The Beatles played to a sold-out Cincinnati Gardens on August 27, 1964, with a top ticket price of $5.50. Purtan and his fellow WSAI “Good Guys” introduced the band from the stage that night.
Bringing the Beatles to Cinncinati
Long before the Beatles took the stage at Cincinnati Gardens, another stage had caught Dick Purtan’s attention. He was 15 when he spotted Gail onstage at Kenmore West High School near Buffalo and told the friend sitting beside him that he was going to marry her someday. The two went on to raise six daughters, and Gail believed in Dick’s radio ambitions from the start, when he was still trying to get a foothold in the business. “She had my back,” he said. They were married for 60 years, until Gail’s death in 2018.
Gail Purtan and Dick Purtan
In 1965, he arrived at WKNR, Detroit’s “Keener 13.” Born Paul Richard Purtan, he went by Dick at WKNR to avoid confusion with another announcer. He told me he wanted the late shift because he figured station management wouldn’t be listening. But they were and he soon moved to mornings.
When Keener brought in consultant Mike Joseph, Purtan recalled, Joseph wanted DJs to keep their record introductions to 10 seconds. Purtan argued that morning radio needed room for conversation and comedy. Management gave him that latitude on his morning show while Joseph’s tighter format went into effect the rest of the day.
At WXYZ, CKLW and WCZY, later WKQI, his deadpan delivery and ‘put on’ calls gave listeners a reason to stay through the breaks between records. In 1996 he moved to 104.3 WOMC, where he spent the last 14 years of his daily radio career.
Dick Purtan at the Big 8
Dick Purtan’s four and a half decades on Detroit radio earned him a Marconi Award, induction into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2004, and a place in the National Association of Broadcasters’ Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2006. In September 2025, Michigan lawmakers honored him with a framed Special Tribute at the State Capitol in Lansing. The tribute recognized both the humor he brought to generations of morning listeners and the way he put that audience to work for his community, most visibly through the Salvation Army’s Bed & Bread Radiothon.
State of Michigan pays tribute to Dick Purtan
Meet Big Al Muskovitz
How Purtan’s People got the laughs
Purtan wanted two scripts ready each morning, whether the show used them or not. Jackie, an original member of Detroit’s Second City cast, wrote sketches alongside people including Gene Taylor and “Big Al” Muskovitz. She described starting with a scrap of an idea and imagining what one of the show’s regular characters would do with it. Once the microphones were on, she trusted the cast to take it wherever they found a laugh.
Sometimes all it took was a slip of the tongue. JoAnne remembered sports announcer Doc Andrews tripping over the word “discs” in a report about golfer Fuzzy Zoeller. Dick laughed so hard he shook. Jackie said getting her father to laugh like that was an unspoken goal around the studio. “That would make our year,” she said.
JoAnne, Jackie and Dick Purtan
The Purtans at WOMC
Dick’s last morning show aired on March 26, 2010. His wife, Gail, their six daughters and their grandchildren were there. Jackie remembered that Gail, usually shy about going on the air, did the weather and traffic that morning.
As a girl tagging along to WXYZ on Saturdays, JoAnne would sit at the television news desk and pretend to anchor. She went on to spend 27 years in TV news. Then a call came in 2018 to join her former Channel 7 colleague Stephen Clark on WOMC, the station where her dad had signed off and her sister had helped write the show. “Mornings? I hate mornings!” was her first reaction. She took the job and went on to co-host “JoAnne, Jason and Ben.”
What listeners gave back
Bringing the Bed and Bread Club to Detroiters each year.
By the time Purtan retired, the annual Bed & Bread Radiothon had raised more than $23.6 million over 23 years for the Salvation Army of Metro Detroit. The fundraiser continued on WJR. JoAnne remembers riding the meal truck in winter and seeing people come out of the cold for soup and a sandwich, sometimes their only hot meal of the day.
Dick and Gail also made ovarian cancer research a family cause after Gail was diagnosed with the disease. They supported research at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, and Dick and their daughters have continued that work in her memory. The Purtan Family Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation at Karmanos honors Gail’s legacy.
When I brought up the millions the radiothon had raised, Dick gave the credit to the people on the other side of the radio. “We just encouraged them to give,” he said, “and they did.”
Love the second time around
Two years after Gail’s passing, Dick Purtan married Donna Hammar in a small outdoor ceremony at his Oakland County home in June 2020. All six of Dick’s daughters were there with their families, along with Donna’s daughter and her family. Dick told fans he was grateful to find love again at a point in his life when he hadn’t expected it, adding with his usual timing, “You know, being 49 and all.” Donna was just off camera during our USA Radio Museum interview, helping Dick with the setup. He stopped to introduce her, then summed up who had the technical side under control. “They know what they’re doing,” he said. “I have no clue.”
Donna and Dick Purtan
Dick Purtan Kept Detroit Laughing
When Dick, Jackie and JoAnne started laughing again about the man who bought a ticket to sit behind a tree at the Iditarod, I could hear what made those Detroit mornings so much fun. Dick knew just how long to play it straight, and his crew knew how far they could take him before he cracked up. For listeners getting the kids ready for school or heading to work in the dark, it felt like being in on the joke.
Dick Purtan, JoAnne, Jackie
Purtan’s People:
From all of us at the USA Radio Museum, here’s to you, Dick. Thanks for the laughs, the company, and all those mornings you made a little easier to get up for.
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