R.I.P.: Ron Chapman, Longtime D/FW Radio Personality

Ron Chapman (Dec 5, 1936-April 25, 2021)

Broadcasting great Ron Chapman, who introduced himself to Dallas radio in 1959 under the pseudonym of “Irving Harrigan” on AM pioneer KLIF 1190 AM, and who enhanced his legend after more than 30 years at KVIL-FM and another five at KLUV-FM, died Monday. 

He was 85, reports The Dallas Morning News.

Chapman liked to say he was a poor kid who grew up behind a grocery store, which his father owned in his native Haverhill, Mass. His hard-scrabble experience inspired him to say, “I’ll show them.” And his broadcasting career accomplished exactly that — he showed them.

“I can walk faster than most people can run,” Chapman once told The Dallas Morning News. “The guiding light in my life, my operational phrase, was: ‘I’ll show ‘em.’ It wasn’t angry. It was just ambition. Everyone I knew went to college. And I was going to run faster, work harder, get street-smarter. Whatever it took.”

His career launched in 1953, when he graduated from high school. His first job was working as a disc jockey at WHAV in Haverhill. He served with the Army in South Korea from 1957 to 1959, when he produced a radio show for Voice of the United Nations Command.

He moved to Dallas in 1959 but was known for years as Irving Harrigan, who shared a microphone with “Charlie Brown” — whose real name was Jack Woods — at KLIF, known then as “The Mighty 1190.”

In 1969, Chapman joined the staff of KVIL in Dallas, where he worked as a morning deejay, music director and program director, bringing the “adult contemporary” format to FM radio. He remained at KVIL for 31 years, during which Chapman became a local legend known, according to his bio page on the Radio Hall of Fame, “for his humor, outrageous stunts and giveaways.”

In 2000, Chapman moved to KLUV in Dallas, an “oldies” station where he stayed until announcing his retirement from radio in 2005. In 2007, he returned to broadcasting part-time as a “permanent substitute” for legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey.

He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2012.