R.I.P.: Longtime N-C Radio Personality Max Meeks

Max Meeks

The Piedmont Triad has lost a broadcast legend.

Max Meeks, the longtime morning radio personality of WMFR 1230 AM in High Point, passed away Monday afternoon after a long illness, reports journalnow.com.

His voice woke up people in this area for more than half a century.  Meeks was 92 years old.

When Meeks retired from his popular “Max in the Morning” show in January 2010 at the age of 86, he was the oldest radio announcer in the country.

Meeks was a radio man in the Navy during World War II. He started at WMFR in 1947 and was on the air there for most of the rest of the time — with the exception of his brief stint in the furniture business in the 1950s and 1960s.

He once said his 5:30-9 a.m. show never really changed all that much. Listeners loved the program’s staples like the “Hymn of the Day” and the daily birthday announcements. One media publication called it a “throwback in a day and age when radio had become dominated by shock jocks and political talk shows.”