R.I.P.: Arthur Crofton, Longtime Jacksonville Radio Personality

Arthur Crofton (1952-2024)

Jacksonville genial radio personality Arthur Crofton, possessor of a familiar, unmistakable voice has died, according to a Facebook post by 96.1 WEJZ where he began as a morning host in 1990. He was 72, reports The Florida Times-Union.

“To say that he will be missed is a huge understatement,” the station said. “Arthur has been hosting mornings on WEJZ for over 30 years. He entertained and informed millions of North Floridians and he loved every minute of it. Please keep his family in your prayers.” 

No cause of death was announced.  

Thursday morning, his radio co-host, Yvonne Velazquez, paid tribute to Crofton on air, talking with those who had worked with him and those who had listened to him. "We got countless stories this morning and on our Facebook page of personal stories, of people meeting with him and connecting with him," she said after the morning show ended. "He’s going to be greatly missed by his radio family and his listening family."

She mentioned one caller in particular, who told her: “I knew I was more than a listener the day he called me ‘mate.’"

Crofton, who first came to Jacksonville radio in 1978, grew up in northeast England, the son of an English father and a mother from Alabama. 

In 1970, with American citizenship through his mother, he moved to New York where he worked as a mail clerk at CBS News, according to a biography on the WEJZ website. 

At 19, he enrolled at his mother’s alma mater, the University of Alabama, where he majored in communication, already in love with radio. As a kid, he had listened to the BBC, but it was pirate radio — freewheeling unlicensed stations that operated on ships offshore — that made him want to become a disc jockey. 

In a 2008 Times-Union interview with Charlie Patton, he told how his first radio job was at a tiny AM station, housed in a wooden shack, where he spent Sunday mornings running preachers' tapes. For that, he made all of $2 an hour. 

As a student, he was a disc jockey at a local station. After a political science professor he looked up to complimented his work, he felt justified in his career choice, he told Patton. 

Crofton was 26 when he came to Jacksonville in 1978, to Sunny 60. He worked at several other stations, as well as one in Washington D.C. before joining WEJZ in 1990, where his smooth English accent was a perfect fit for the morning show.