Dave McQueen, a longtime voice in Bay Area radio and a former KCBS Radio anchor, died on Sunday.
He was 78 years old.
McQueen was survived by his wife, Mary Tilson, his two children, Ron and Juliet, as well as his three grandchildren, brother and sister. His memorial will take place at a later date.
McQueen began broadcasting in the 1960s in his native Texas, eventually joining underground Bay Area radio station KSAN by the end of the decade. He was a fixture on the region’s radio dials until his retirement in 2009, also working for KKSF, KFRC and KKCY, among other stations.
Inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2010, McQueen worked as KCBS Radio’s overnight anchor from 2001 until 2009. John Evans, McQueen's successor and longtime friend, said he was a "newsman's newsman."
"He was very professional," Debra Ingerson, a KCBS Radio News Editor who worked alongside McQueen during the entirety of his time at the station, said in an interview Monday night. "Everything had to be accurate. Everyone should have that kind of standard."
Ingerson called McQueen a "dear man," and one who didn’t boast about his extensive experience broadcasting in the Bay Area, nor his deep knowledge of topics within, and well beyond, the region.
McQueen began his broadcasting career in his native Texas in the 1960s, after spending his teenage years in Port Arthur as a high school contemporary of Janis Joplin. He then brought instant credibility and gravitas to underground Bay Area radio station KSAN around the end of the decade.
Such was McQueen's "power" with countercultural, up-and-coming audiences of the time, Evans and Ingerson recalled, that McQueen’s KSAN was the only media outlet the Indians of All Tribes communicated with during their 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, as well as the station the Symbionese Liberation Army sent tapes of Patty Hearst denouncing her family following her 1974 kidnapping.
"I don't think it's possible for listeners [of a 24-hour news format] to really understand the great depth of passion David had for reporting the news, and getting it right and imparting a deeper sense of what it really means," Tilson, whom McQueen separated from in 2017 but remained on friendly terms with until his passing, told KCBS Radio on Monday night.
"I think that, at KSAN and other types of radio stations, he was able to do that. But I don’t think people realize just how much depth he had in terms of his chosen career."
Evans and McQueen worked together at KKSF, a defunct smooth jazz station in San Francisco, for three years around the turn of the century. They were broadcasting together on Sept. 11, 2001 during the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the pair – without saying anything to one another – shifted into newsgathering mode.
They then co-anchored a 2.5-hour newscast with no scripts and no commercials, Evans said, taking listeners through the events of "the most horrific day in our history."
"I couldn't have done it with anybody else but him, because he was that good," Evans said.
"We weren’t a news station, but we sounded like one that day."
Off the air, McQueen loved to cook. He made "the best cornbread on Earth," Tilson recalled, while Evans said McQueen routinely made enough Southern-style food for two when they worked together.
McQueen also enjoyed living in Berkeley, which he called home until his passing. Outspokenly progressive, McQueen delighted in challenging his friends’ beliefs and intellectual bonafides.
He took the most pleasure in reading books and raising dogs, though. Reading was McQueen’s refuge, and he lit up most with friends when talking about dogs.
Although McQueen was largely private and guarded, his friends and colleagues said they’ll miss his affection.
"I think if you sort of tapped beyond that introverted shell, he was very warm and deeply kind," Tilson said. "He was a kind person."
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