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| Maury O'Dell (1934-2023) |
For 27 years, Maury O’Dell was the warm, familiar voice on the morning radio — a talk specialist who ad-libbed his way through tens of thousands of hours, offering his dedicated audience thoughts on last night’s game, next week’s election and advice on fixing a leaky dishwasher. O’Dell died last week at 86, according to the News-Observer.
He joined WPTF as a young man in the mid-1970s and soon took charge of his signature show: “Ask Your Neighbor,” which drew an estimated 25,000 listeners from Greenville to Greensboro.
— Tom Benson (@Tombenson1) October 31, 2023
He juggled dozens of callers through that program, many of them regulars, seeking tips on removing carpet stains, recipes for banana pudding, the most reliable brand of toaster and the best corndog at the State Fair. To close each day, he held an on-air auction, selling everything from used bicycles to secondhand sump pumps. ‘HE WAS UNCLE MAURY’ Those weekday broadcasts were so popular that listeners at home turned on the radio in every room of the house so they wouldn’t miss a word. “He was Uncle Maury,” said Mike Raley, longtime host of the “Weekend Gardener” program, another WPTF staple. “A lot of it was chitchat about the darnedest things. Maury was very funny. He was affable. He was a wonderful ad-libber among a lot of great ad-libbers.”
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