Dick Purtan Kept Detroit Laughing Before Breakfast for 45 Years

Dick Purtan spent more than 45 years on Detroit radio, won a Marconi Award, and entered the Radio Hall of Fame in 2004 — but the joke the family still laughs about involves a man who bought a ticket to sit behind a tree. The setting was the Iditarod, the annual sled dog race in Alaska. The caller, an impressionist named Joe Noune playing "Howard Cosell," reported on the obstructed-view seat. Purtan kept asking questions. He never let on that anything was unusual. That straight face, his daughters agree, was half the joke.

Dick, Jackie and JoAnne Purtan recounted that bit, and much more, in a legacy conversation recorded for the USA Radio Museum with interviewer Jim Hampton. Their recollections trace a career that ran from upstate New York to Cincinnati to Detroit, and a family that turned morning radio into a civic institution.

From Guy King to Keener 13

Purtan began at Buffalo's WWOL under the name "Guy King." The station used the same name for whoever took the afternoon shift. "They saved a lot of money that way," he told Hampton. Early stops followed at WOLF in Syracuse and WSAI in Cincinnati.

At WSAI in 1964, working as Paul Purtan, he joined four other disc jockeys who each put up $5,000 of their own money to bring the Beatles to town. After seeing the band on The Ed Sullivan Show, the DJs sent a telegram to England asking for a date. The booking came through at $25,000. Purtan turned to concert promoter Dino Santangelo, whom he knew from the National Guard, to produce the show. The Beatles played a sold-out Cincinnati Gardens on August 27, 1964, with a top ticket at $5.50. Purtan and his fellow WSAI "Good Guys" introduced the band from the stage.

The story behind the career, though, began earlier. At 15, Purtan spotted Gail onstage at Kenmore West High School near Buffalo and told a friend he would marry her someday. They raised six daughters and stayed married for 60 years, until Gail's death in 2018. "She had my back," he said of her support during his early struggle to get a foothold in radio.

What did the Detroit years change for morning radio?

In 1965 Purtan arrived at WKNR, Detroit's "Keener 13," taking the name Dick to avoid confusion with another announcer. He wanted the late shift, figuring management would not be listening. They were. He soon moved to mornings.

When consultant Mike Joseph arrived and wanted record introductions capped at 10 seconds, Purtan pushed back. Morning radio, he argued, needed room for conversation and comedy. Management granted him that latitude on his show while Joseph's tighter format ran the rest of the day. The argument shaped the sound of Detroit mornings for decades. At WXYZ, CKLW and WCZY, later WKQI, his deadpan delivery and 'put on' calls kept listeners through the breaks between records. In 1996 he moved to 104.3 WOMC, where he spent the last 14 years of his daily career.

How the show got its laughs

Purtan wanted two scripts ready each morning, whether the show used them or not. Jackie, an original member of Detroit's Second City cast, wrote sketches alongside Gene Taylor and "Big Al" Muskovitz. She described starting with a scrap of an idea and imagining what one of the show's regular characters would do with it. Once the microphones were on, she trusted the cast to find the laugh.

Sometimes a slip of the tongue did the work. JoAnne recalled sports announcer Doc Andrews tripping over the word "discs" in a report about golfer Fuzzy Zoeller. Dick laughed so hard he shook. "That would make our year," Jackie said of getting her father to break like that.

His final morning show aired on March 26, 2010, at WOMC. Gail, their six daughters and grandchildren attended. Gail, usually shy about the air, did the weather and traffic that morning. JoAnne later joined the station herself in 2018, alongside former Channel 7 colleague Stephen Clark. "Mornings? I hate mornings!" was her first reaction. She took the job and co-hosted "JoAnne, Jason and Ben" after 27 years in TV news.

What did listeners give back?

By the time Purtan retired, the annual Bed & Bread Radiothon had raised more than $23.6 million over 23 years for the Salvation Army of Metro Detroit. The fundraiser continued on WJR. JoAnne remembered riding the meal truck in winter and watching people come out of the cold for soup and a sandwich, sometimes their only hot meal of the day.

Ovarian cancer research became a family cause after Gail's diagnosis. The Purtans supported work at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, and the Purtan Family Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation at Karmanos now honors Gail's legacy. When Hampton raised the radiothon's millions, Dick redirected the credit: "We just encouraged them to give, and they did."

In June 2020, two years after Gail's death, Purtan married Donna Hammar at his Oakland County home, with all six daughters and their families present. He told fans he was grateful to find love again, adding with his timing: "You know, being 49 and all."

In September 2025, Michigan lawmakers honored him with a framed Special Tribute at the State Capitol in Lansing — recognition, Hampton notes, of both the humor and the audience Purtan mobilized for his city. For listeners getting children ready for school in the dark, being in on the joke was the point. The USA Radio Museum has now posted five recordings of "Purtan's People" from WCZY-FM, keeping those mornings available to anyone who wants to hear how long Dick could play it straight.