MN Radio: Longtime Vet Andy Lia Signs-Off At KDLM

For as long as most people living in the lakes area can remember, Andy Lia has been the “Voice of the Lakers,” calling just about every Detroit Lakes High School football, basketball, volleyball, hockey and golf game for KDLM 1340 AM and K226KA 93.1 FM in Detroit Lakes, MN since 1980.

He’s also been a fixture of the local station’s morning programming, with his radio show running from 5:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. every Monday through Friday. But this past Thursday, Lia signed off from his show for the last time, reports dl-oneline.com.

“I guess it’s just time,” he said of his reasons for calling it quits after 36 straight years as KDLM’s operations manager and sports director. “I think I’ve been with Leighton (Broadcasting) for 40 years, altogether… I started in broadcasting when it was all records and turntables. Now everything’s computerized. I’m not nearly as tech-savvy as some of the guys here.”

Lia also says that after 36 years of getting up at 4:15 a.m. every weekday and going into the station for his radio show, plus traveling all over the region to call games for dozens of area sports teams at all hours of the day and evening, it’s not nearly as much fun as it used to be.

So what’s next? When asked that question, Lia grins and pantomimes taking a swing at an imaginary golf ball.

“I want to golf, fish, hopefully do a little traveling,” he said, adding that he and his wife Sandy “got the bug” to travel after a trip to Europe last year, and he hopes to get some time to visit with his sisters in Tampa, Fla., and Phoenix, Ariz., as well as his other two sisters in Minnesota, along with son Craig and daughter Andrea, who live in Rochester and Mora, Minn., respectively. He also has four grandchildren that he hopes to spend more time with.

After graduating from Detroit Lakes High School in 1959, he went on to get his one-year degree in radio broadcasting from Brown Institute in the Twin Cities. But it wasn’t necessarily his first choice.
“I was going to be a teacher at one time, but when college fell through, I went to radio school,” Lia said in a 2009 interview, prior to his induction into the Minnesota Museum of Broadcasting Hall of Fame.

Lia got his first job as a radio announcer at KTRF in Thief River Falls, in the fall of 1960. He stayed at KTRF for two years, and while there, was given the opportunity to call a few games.

His next job was at KPRM in Park Rapids, as a sports announcer and program director. After just a year at Park Rapids, he moved on to KLIZ in Brainerd, where he was given his first job as sports director.

He returned to KTRF in Thief River Falls, where he stayed for “about six or seven years” before taking a job as the sports director, FM operations manager and AM morning announcer at KDLM in Detroit Lakes in 1975.