R.I.P.: Tom Barberi, Longtime Utah Radio Talk Host

Tom Barberi (Salt Lake Tribune photo)

Tom Barberi, a radio talk show host who loved to poke fun at Utah institutions and became one himself, has died.

Barberi died Friday morning, according to daughter Gina Barberi, who followed her father’s career path and is now a host of KXRK X96′s “Radio From Hell” show. He was 78, according to Salt Lake Tribune.

Known as “The Voice of Reason” on radio station KALL from 1971 to 2004, Barberi mixed news and sports and politics. He interviewed powerful and not-so-powerful people, and took calls from listeners.

Barberi often took aim at the Utah establishment — from politicians to religious leaders.

“He pushed a little bit. He teased Utah in a good way,” said former Salt Lake Tribune Editor James E. “Jay” Shelledy, who is now a member of the nonprofit Tribune’s board of directors. “But he was always kind — never mean about it. And he was quite popular for a long time.

In 1991, when Barberi was celebrating 20 years at KALL, he told The Tribune he went into radio “because I have no marketable skills. See, it’s either do radio or go back to San Jose to the loading docks and unload boxes. I think I’d rather abuse people over the air than work for a living.”

And, he said, he didn’t spend much time planning each day’s installment of “The Tom Barberi Show.”

“I never know what I’m going to talk about when I go on the air,” he said, “and I never know who is going to call me. It’s just as much of a surprise to me as it is to the listeners.”

Shelledy said he didn’t recall Barberi going after the state’s predominant faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on matters of religion, but that he did push back against Utah’s cultural norms.

“He went after the culture of the state,” Shelledy said, “and where there’s a dominant religion, that’s going to be part of the culture.”