Dick Siegel, once part of the most recognizable radio team
in the Dallas-Fort Worth area died of a heart attacked Thursday. He was 75.
Siegel was teamed with Hal Jay on
WBAP-AM 820 from 1981 to
2003 for the top-rated morning radio show in the
Dallas-
Fort Worth area.
Hal and Dick, as they were commonly known, had 3 million
listeners within 100 miles of their Fort Worth-licensed station.
They had countless other listeners around the nation as
WBAP's clear-channel signal reached pretty much from coast to coast and border
to border.
With Hal in the studio and Dick in his helicopter providing
traffic reports, the duo shared an uncanny camaraderie. Besides news, weather
and traffic, Hal and Dick supplied listeners with an endless stream of jokes
and hilarious fictitious characters. They even had their own comic strip in the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram called "The Adventures of Hal 'n Dick."
Although his radio reputation was built as a helicopter
pilot, traffic reporter and comic, Siegel had been a weekend disc jockey at
KLIF radio in Dallas
before moving to WBAP.
In an interview last May with
gosanangelo.com, Siegel
recalled "I flew that helicopter by myself," Siegel said of his D/FW
radio days. "I had the stick between my knees, I was writing down traffic
notes on a clipboard, and I had another clipboard mounted to the instrument
panel with all my jokes on it. Five radio and TV stations had helicopters
flying around (giving traffic updates), plus the police and
EMS
helicopters. I had a radio going back to my control tower at Meacham Field,
plus all the other radio chatter from the other stations.
"If you lose a part or something else goes wrong with
your engine, you've got eight seconds to land before you crash. You've got to
know where all the other helicopters are, where the electrical high line wires
are and which direction the wind's blowing. There's no way you can do all that
if you drink."
One close call Siegel remembers came when his helicopter
lost a part, forcing him to land at the Interstate 30 and Interstate 35W
Mixmaster in Fort Worth,
where multiple highways overpass and merge.
"I got down through the wires and landed on one of
those grassy areas next to an overpass," Siegel said. "A police
helicopter landed, and they came running over to see if I was OK. I had just
quit smoking a week earlier, but the first thing I said to the police officer
was to ask him for a cigarette."
Siegel's reputation with his helicopter landed him in some
unusual spots. He once was called to fly Elvis Presley from a concert to his
hotel after he was mobbed by fans after a Fort
Worth performance. He also shot the flyovers of
Southfork Ranch during the introduction of the TV show "Dallas."
Once while providing traffic reports in D/FW, Siegel even
rescued a woman and her two daughters from a car that was about to tip over a
bridge railing during a flood.
"He balanced the helicopter on the trunk to steady the
car," Paula Boyer said. "He told the two kids to climb out and get in
with him, and they did. The mom was scared to get out of her car. Dick finally
said, 'Lady, I've got your kids, and that's all I need. But I'd like you to get
in, too. I can't wait any longer.' She finally got in with Dick. As soon as he
flew off, the car toppled over the rail."
For that rescue, Siegel received the Pilot of the Year Award
in 1989 from Helicopter Association International. The award recognizes an
outstanding single feat by an active civilian pilot.
Several fictitious characters visited Hal and Dick during
their shows, but "Sam from Sales" was the original WBAP character and
the most popular, lasting 16 years. He was a high-pressure salesman with funny
stories about his large family of cousins.
"Sam from Sales" was actually voiced by John
Hanson, a former WBAP production manager. "He'd walk up and down the
hallways at WBAP, impersonating Eddie Murphy from that movie "Beverly
Hills Cop," and he was hilarious," Siegel said. "Hal and I both
said, 'We've got to get that on the air.'"
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| KLDE Photo |
Hal and Dick were so popular that, from 1981 to 1994, they
were the only Dallas/Fort Worth area radio team to do the afternoon drive-time
show in addition to the morning show. They also kept their audience after WBAP
switched its format from country music to news/talk in 1993. Jay still does the
morning show after 30-plus years, and according to Arbitron Ratings, WBAP still
is the top news/talk station in D/FW.
"We were on so much, the audience thought they knew us
personally," Siegel said. "They knew when I went through all my
divorces and all my ex-wives' names."
More recently, Siegel played oldies in rural West Texas. KLDE-FM 104.9 reaches a 70-mile radius around
Eldorado — from Sonora to Ozona to Big Lake to San Angelo.
