R.I.P.: Former Tucson Radio Personality Margie Rye

Margie Rye

Margie Rye, a popular Tucson radio personality from the 1980s-90s who fell in love with radio while watching her father launch an FM station in the family’s Bisbee home, died on Thursday, Dec. 14.

She was 54, according to tucson.com.

Her husband, Steve Clement, said the cause of death was complications of alcoholism.

Margie Wrye, who went by the name “Margie Rye” throughout her nearly 20 years on Tucson radio, was born on Jan. 12, 1963, in Huntsville, Alabama, where her father, William Wrye, was a NASA aerospace engineer.

The family moved to Bisbee in 1972 and William Wrye went to work at Fort Huachuca in neighboring Sierra Vista. At night, he built an FM radio station — first called KBAZ and later KZMK — in the family’s basement.

Rye moved to Tucson to attend the University of Arizona and in 1982, her second year studying radio and TV, she took a job in telephone research at KWFM. She told Tucson Lifestyles magazine in 2015 that daytime DJ Bob Cooke was impressed with Rye’s deep, smoky voice and helped her land a tryout with program director Jim Ray.

“The next thing I know, Jim says, ‘Hey Margie, you want a job on the air? I’ll give you a tryout.’ It was Saturday, from 2-4 a.m.,” she recalled in that 2015 interview.

Months later, Cooke was shot and killed by a fan. Clement said the death was a seminal moment in Rye’s life, prompting her to drop out of college and devote her life to radio.

Rye worked at several Tucson stations, including KWFM/KCEE, Cool 92.9, and KLPX, and became a celebrity back home in Bisbee. She is perhaps best known for her midday KLPX segment the “Daily Dinosaur,” in which she would play older records based on a single theme.

Rye met her husband at Cool 92.9, where he worked in sales. When they started their family in late 1993, “We made the choice together for her to stay home,” said Clement, who is now vice president of sales for Clear Channel Outdoor.

The couple had a second son four years later and Rye, who had tip-toed back into radio part-time, returned in the early 2000s when the boys were older. She worked for KLPX from 2003-09.