R.I.P.: KSRO's Jim Grady Dead At 77 in Santa Rosa

Jim Grady

Quick-witted radio broadcaster Jim Grady, for more than 50 years the voice of Sonoma County, California and one of its happiest advocates, died Wednesday at the age of 77, according to a story by Chris Smith at The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa.

In his heyday, Grady's newsy, folksy morning show started the day for much of the population of a county he had loved since the early 1940s, when he began to visit the Russian River from his home in San Francisco.

"I grew up on that river," he said in a 2010 interview with The Press Democrat.

Grady studied at Los Angeles' Don Martin School of Radio and Television and in 1959, the same year he married his wife, Carol, found a radio job in Seattle.

He loved the work but hated the soggy weather. So he moved south to more familiar, temperate territory and sought a job from Frank McLauren, then station manager at KSRO 1350 AM.

McLauren hired him for an afternoon shift. A couple of years later, morning anchor Ken Minyard moved to Los Angeles and left behind an opportunity for Grady to move up.

For decades, he anchored the morning show, spent much of the rest of the day traveling the county and selling airtime to advertisers, and at night broadcast local high-school and Santa Rosa Junior College games with longtime on-air partner Merle Ross.

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