UPDATE 12:30 AM 9/30/08: OMW hears that there will be calling hours for Chris Quinn later this week – Thursday, October 2nd from 5-7 PM, at Burr Funeral Home, at 116 South Street in Chardon…
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We’re getting word this evening that Cleveland radio personality/engineer/all around radio guy Chris Quinn has passed away, apparently after an illness. We have no further details.
Chris “The Mighty” Quinn’s resume covers a number of important stations in Cleveland.
In the 1990’s, Chris moved from fill-ins, to weekend nights, to weeknights at oldies WMJI “Majic 105.7”. But he also worked well before that at some big local stations: like WIXY/1260, WGAR/1220, and WRMR/850.
We were unaware, though, that Chris worked at Akron’s WAKR/1590 in the early 1970’s, nor another stop listed in the information we were given, KHTZ in Los Angeles, in the 1980’s. (A quick Google search tells us that KHTZ “K-Hits” was apparently the immediate predecessor of classic rock-turned-FM talk KLSX/97.1.)
We were aware that Chris’ last stop in radio was as chief engineer of Cleveland gospel outlet WABQ, first at 1540 in Cleveland. He then followed 1540’s now-former ownership to their other station, the newly-renamed and newly-gospel-formatted WABQ/1460 in Painesville – the former WBKC.
We knew that, of course, because that’s where Chris “The Mighty” Quinn’s life intersected with ours.
A quick search of this blog for “Quinn” will reveal a number of items speculating on the future upgrade possibilities for then-WABQ/1540 (now WWGK), as it was about to be sold to Craig Karmazin’s Good Karma Broadcasting as his first Cleveland radio outlet. (OK, maybe the search term “WABQ” would yield better results, and filter out all the items about morning talk radio’s “Quinn and Rose”.)
Chris Quinn didn’t know about this blog at first.
But upon discovering the talk here, he was very, very helpful, providing us with very detailed (and accurate) information about what the new owner could do to try to upgrade the signal….and he did it on his own, since Chris went to Painesville with AM 1540’s former owners, and wasn’t involved in the upgrade filed recently by Good Karma.
Chris was helpful, gracious and went above and beyond the call in answering questions we brought up. So, it’s no surprise to us that word his passing, only making the rounds of the local broadcast community on this Sunday evening, has us already hearing from those who mourn Chris Quinn…
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