R.I.P.: Dick Munro, Longtime Indiana Radio Personality

Dick Munro

Dick Munro, the voice behind the radio dial from the dawn of AM broadcasting in Montgomery County, died from complications of Parkinson's disease Wednesday. 

He was 85, reports The Journal-Review in Crawfordsville, IN.

Munro was an on-air announcer, program director and manager of WCVL-AM and WIMC-FM, where he helped launch the careers of young broadcasters and became a fixture at local government meetings and community events.

“He was a mountain of a man and a mountain of a broadcaster,” said Crawfordsville Radio general manager Dave Peach, who joined the station when Munro hosted a morning show on WCVL.

Richard Michael Munro was born on Jan. 10, 1936 in Chicago. After serving with the U.S. Army during the Korean War, a colleague invited him to a radio night class in Boston.

Munro worked at radio and television stations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia before applying for a job in Terre Haute when he learned a new station was going on the air in Crawfordsville.

Munro in 1990

By the mid-1960s, Munro was hired to program WCVL, which signed on the air on Dec. 12, 1964 from studios above a jewelry store overlooking downtown Crawfordsville. The station offered a schedule of “melodious music and community information” with classical and country-western shows, farm reports and the “Swap Shop,” which aired three times daily.

Munro left WCVL a few years later to run his own station in Kentucky, but had returned by the 1980s to manage the Crawfordsville dial. (WIMC signed on in 1974 and WCDQ-FM joined the family of stations in 2000.)

“The radio station was his life,” said Jill Pursell, a former sales manager and general manager of the stations.

He’s also the author of the 2011 historical fiction novel “Tales of a Scottish Freewheeler,” which was set in 1790s in the Scottish Highlands. Munro enjoyed traveling to Scotland.

Until a few months before his death, Munro — a Chicago Cubs fan — was writing a book about baseball.