R.I.P.: Longtime CenPA Personality Ben Barber

Ben Barber

Longtime Carlisle-area radio personality Ben Barber died Tuesday following a two-year battle with bladder cancer.

Barber was 70, according to The Patriot-News.

Barber  spent 50 years in radio, retired from WHYL 960 AM in September.

“It will really be something,” Donna said of the event she is putting together for the regional radio icon. “He was a pioneer [in radio]. He is the reason there are so many DJs from Cumberland County.”

Barber, whose hosted the “Breakfast with Ben” radio show at WHYL, was predeceased by a son.

He started his radio career after attending Elkins Institute of Radio and Electronics in Chicago in 1963.

He landed his first radio job at WEZN in Elizabethtown. He wasn’t there long, though, and left to join Wormleysburg station WCMB 1460 AM in Wormleysburg/Harrisburg from 1963 to 1966.

He arrived at WHYL just outside Carlisle in 1966, where he stayed until 1979, before leaving to join its competitor W100. But he came back to WHYL in 2004 and stayed there until retirement.