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| Chuck Benson |
Upon returning from Korea (1951-54), a buddy convinced Chuck to go check out a "quickie" radio school with him in downtown Chicago. Well, after one meeting with the microphone, the rest is history.
Chuck broke into the business during the 1950's rise of Rock and Roll music and Top 40 Radio. For 30+ years he entertained listeners around the country. He was heard on WHFB (Benton Harbor), KALL (Salt Lake City), KBOX (Dallas), KILT (Houston), WGR (Buffalo) and KSIR (Estes Park). Chuck spent most of his radio career in Chicago at WMAQ, WIND and WFYR. He worked alongside on-air greats like Clark Weber, Stu Collins, Dick Bartley, Kris Kridel, "Chicago" Eddie Schwartz and Kurt Russell, just to name a few. Chuck and Kurt Russell are one of the few non-newspaper celebrities whose picture hangs on The Wall of Fame at The Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Ave.
After leaving radio, Chuck had a successful 20 year voice-over career. He recorded hundreds of radio and TV commercials and industrial narrations for the likes of Lockheed Martin, Hewlett Packard and Jeppesen. He spent 18 years recording nearly 400 books for the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, a program of The Library of Congress.
In 1996, Chuck received the Alexander Scourby Narrator of the Year Award for Fiction, to honor excellence in the narration of Talking Books, an award touted as the "Oscar" for the blind and visually impaired Americans. In 2000, Chuck won a Heartland Regional Emmy Award for narrating the documentary "Colorado's Historic Carousels".
After 20 years in Colorado and 5 in Arizona, Chuck finally retired in 2009.
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