R.I.P.: Charlotte Radio Personality Nathan Richie

Nathan Richie

Nathan Richie, a former Charlotte radio host who recently had landed his dream job, died in a motorcycle accident Saturday morning in Indian Land, S.C., while on his way to meet his father-in-law to celebrate Father's Day.

He was 53, acording to the Charlotte Observer.

Most recently, Richie was a host for WLKO 102.9 FM "The Lake", although he also was an on-air personality for WEND 106.5 FM The End") and old local stations like Mix 104.7 and WBCY 108.

He got his start in the business in the showiest and silliest way possible: dressed in a chicken costume as the mascot for WBCY — which was a rock station in Charlotte back in the '80s and is now WLNK-FM (107.9 "The Link") — when he was still a student at East Mecklenburg High School.

He ended it working out of that same building at 1 Julian Price Place just west of uptown, in a powerful and important role behind the scenes: as director of digital programming for Entercom Charlotte, which operates WLNK and the AM and FM bands for both WBT (1110/99.3 "News") and WFNZ (610/102.5 "The Fan").

Hired just this past January, Richie oversaw each station's websites, social media channels, internet radio streams, podcasts, apps and text and email campaigns.

The Entercom job, though, seemed to excite him more than any he'd done before, friends and former colleagues said.

Richie had been fascinated by social media and its potential since Twitter was still in its infancy and before Instagram even existed.