The Great Dick Orkin Has Died

On Sunday, one of the most creative minds to ever grace the radio airwaves passed away. Dick Orkin, the creator of the radio series Chickenman, has died. Many of us grew up in radio listening to the program Orkin created, which eventually made it onto over 1,500 radio stations in its heyday. When I interviewed Orkin for the cover of Radio Ink Magazine in 2016 he sent me every Chickenman episode ever created on CD. He was one of the nicest people I have ever interviewed. Click here for the full interview.

Born in Williamsport, PA, in 1933, Dick Orkin was ready for radio at age 16. He began as a fill-in announcer at WKOK in Sunbury, PA. After earning his BA in speech and theater from Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, he attended the Yale School of Drama, then returned to Lancaster to become the news director at WLAN in 1959. Orkin would move on to KYW in Cleveland, and in 1967 he took a job as production director at WCFL in Chicago, where he created Chickenman.

Read more here.

Archives