Ron Parker, a veteran American radio personality whose warm, easygoing style carried listeners through decades of Top 40, oldies, and classic hits, has died. His last air shift was in May 2026 on SiriusXM’s 60s and 70s channels, where he had been a familiar voice for many years. An Atlanta native, Parker fell in love with radio as a teenager. In 1970, at age 15, he passed his third-class FCC exam and was soon spinning Top 40 and rock records at WPLO in Atlanta.
While attending the University of Georgia from 1971 to 1975, he worked at Athens-area stations including WDOL, WRFC, and WFOX. He landed a major early break at legendary Atlanta Top 40 outlet WQXI in 1973, then moved to Z-93 (WGZC).
His career took him through some of the country’s most prominent stations and markets. He held on-air and programming roles at WLCY and WCKX in Tampa Bay, KFRC in San Francisco, KKBQ and KLDE in Houston—where he served as program director and morning personality and oversaw a station rebrand—WCBS-FM in New York, and WLS-FM in Chicago. He also worked with the Satellite Music Network and ABC Radio Networks in Dallas, with his work heard on stations nationwide.
Parker was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2016 and the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame in 2019. He was also honored by the Friends of Georgia Radio. In later years he divided his time between satellite radio and regional work, including Georgia Gold Saturday Night on TGC Radio, while living in South Texas.
On SiriusXM he became a weekend and fill-in mainstay on the 60s and 70s channels, bringing the same conversational ease he had shown in Houston, New York, and Chicago. Listeners who first heard him on local AM and FM stations later found him again on satellite, a through-line across more than fifty years behind the microphone.
He often said he still loved the work. From a high-school studio in Atlanta to national satellite channels, Ron Parker treated the job as conversation with friends who happened to share a love of the records.