R.I.P.: Saginaw Radio, TV Personality Dick Fabian

Dick Fabian

Longtime Saginaw radio disc jockey and WNEM TV-5 news anchor Dick Fabian died Saturday, March 26.

He was 81, according to mlive.com.

The cause was complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said his wife of 43 years, Gail Fabian.

Fabian was one of the big-time recognizable personalities in the mid-Michigan media landscape, working for WKNX-AM in Saginaw, before taking television jobs at WEYI-25 and WNEM-TV5.

"People always tell me, first, that they recognize his voice immediately," said Gail Fabian. "And then they're quick to say how extremely approachable he always was. He loved people and that made him great at what he did."

After fighting in the Korean War and being discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1956, Fabian enrolled at the University of Detroit, where he planned to study accounting and one day join the Federal Bureau of Investigation. While at school, though, he took a part-time job as a disc jockey at a Detroit hospital, where he played music and read notes for terminally ill patients, according to his bio from the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame, of which he was inducted into in 2013.

A manager from Detroit's WWJ-AM heard one of his broadcasts and thought he had a good radio voice, telling to consider broadcasting as a future career. That recommendation landed him his first full-time radio gig, as a morning show host in 1958 for WCER in Charlotte, Michigan.

According to the MRRL hall of fame, Fabian was a fan of the rock and roll format, but WCER wasn't. After four years at the Charlotte station, he auditioned for WKNX in Saginaw and was hired on the spot. It was in Saginaw where he went from just a voice to a media personality, his wife said.

One of his favorite memories, his wife said, was when a young Simon and Garfunkel came to Saginaw for a show. Dick Fabian approached them at the local YMCA and saw them jotting down notes.

"He asked what they were doing and they told him they were writing a song," Gail Fabian said. "It turned out the song was 'America,' and Dick told them that they better put Saginaw in the lyrics."

The singer-songwriter duo listened to Fabian, as the lyrics of one verse reads:

"It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw. I've come to look for America."

Dick Fabian - 1966

"Those lyrics are in that song because of Dick," his wife said.

While at WKNX, Fabian was on the air from 6 a.m. until 10 a.m., and was then followed by Bob Dyer for the next four-hour block. The duo prepared playlists, did the news and weather and also dabbled in television, according to a Saginaw News report.

Fabian, along with Dyer, can also take some credit for pushing the rock song "96 Tears," by Question Mark and The Mysterians, to a No. 1 hit across the country. According to the hall of fame, WKNX was one of the first stations to play the song. Fabian also invited the band to play it live on the air.

In the early 1970s, after 10 years at WKNX, Fabian left radio for television. He accepted a news director position at WEYI, where he worked for several years, his wife said.

WNEM employees asked Fabian, then 40, to audition for a new show called "PM Magazine," she said. He beat out a dozen others for the job, according to newspaper reports. The show broadcast from 7-8 p.m. and ran for seven years. Fabian then shifted as the must-see weather man for WNEM.

In 1987, Fabian was selected to host a new 5 p.m. hour-long show called "Take Five" on WNEM. He also did special reporting for the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. He retired from the station in 2002.