R.I.P.: Andy Parks, Former WMAL D-C Morning Talker

Andy Parks, who for more than two decades was the sonorant sound of Washington’s morning commute on WMAL radio died Sunday. He was 68, reports the Washington Times.

Parks had been battling an illness but remained on the front lines of the news, recording his last editions of “Politically Unstable,” his podcast at The Times, in February.

Conservative in his views, Mr. Parks married an everyman’s sense of right and wrong and a healthy dose of indignation to go with a booming voice and gentle manner.

“More than anything, Andy was a prince of a guy. And though he spent a lifetime covering all the crazy shenanigans of this political town, he never lost the straightforward common sense that his listeners loved about him,” said Charles Hurt, opinion editor at The Times and a regular collaborator on podcasts with Mr. Parks. “He will be dearly missed.”

Podcasting was the latest turn in Mr. Parks’ career, which began with working in the family business, Tangier Crab House in Randallstown, Maryland. He also studied accounting and computer programming before heading into radio.

He was working as the airborne traffic reporter for WMAL, taking off from Carroll County Regional Airport to deliver rush-hour reports in the mornings and afternoons — and interjected his own bit of humor into his segments.

Station managers realized he was too good to relegate to a few brief appearances a day and landed him inside the studio, where he remained a fixture of Washington mornings at a time when morning radio was king.

“We were Washington’s wake-up call,” said Fred Grandy, who co-hosted “The Grandy & Andy Morning Show” with Parks from 2003 to 2010. “We were the first people you heard in the morning with a breaking story.”

And while other shows chased guests or went for outrage, Mr. Grandy said he and Mr. Parks won listeners by playing off each other..

After WMAL parted ways with Mr. Parks in 2010, The Times sought him out to launch a radio program, which brought him back to the airwaves in Washington and eventually took him online through a podcasting arrangement with the newspaper.

He interviewed major newsmakers and gave a platform to The Times’ reporters’ work in the increasingly competitive conservative talk radio market.