Bay Radio: R.I.P. Legendary Chris Edwards

Chris Edwards

Bay Area radio legend Chris Edwards, died Jan. 31 after an extended illness.

He was 72, according to marinij.com.

Mr. Edwards got his start in Bay Area radio with the morning show at the original KYA-AM, a highly rated Top 40 station, in 1968. Later, he hosted the afternoon show from 2 to 6 p.m. at the station.

In the 1980s, Mr. Edwards hosted the "Chris Edwards Solid Gold Time Machine," a program that aired on K-101 Sunday nights from 6 to 10 p.m. He also worked at K-101 as a sales executive.

Mr. Edwards moved to KSFO-AM/KYA-FM as an account executive, also hosting a Saturday morning show until the end of 1991. For the next 20 years, he worked in sales at radio stations including KFRC, KABL and KKSF. He retired from KGO/KSFO in the summer of 2011.

"His friends in the radio business called him multifaceted," said his wife of 30 years, Cynthia Reinholtz. "He had a broad range of talent. He knew about transmitters, towers, he knew about the coverage of every station. His on-air personality automatically gravitated him toward sales."

The two met at a Nutrisystem class in San Francisco in 1983.

"He did one little commercial, 'I went to Nutrisystem and gained 120 pounds,'" a reference to his wife, she said.

The radio personality was born Edward Christian Reinholtz on Nov. 10, 1941 in Mount Vernon, New York. He loved radio from a young age, earning an amateur ham radio license as a teenager, and hosted his first radio show, "Moonglow with Edwards," on WRUF, the in-house station at his alma mater, the University of Florida. It was there that he took the on-air name Chris Edwards, which combined his middle and first names.

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