This Saturday is a special night for one of WCCO Radio’s special friends and broadcasters for over 30 years, Dave Lee. Lee will be inducted into the Minnesota Broadcast Hall of Fame at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in St. Louis Park.
Lee retired in April, 2021 after 32 years on WCCO, most of those hosting the WCCO Morning News.
Joining Lee in the class of 2022 are KFAN’s Dan Barreiro, TPT and MPR host Cathy Wurzer, Owner and GM of Linder Farm Network Lynn Ketelsen, and KMOJ Radio Executive Freddie Bell.
Speaking with Adam Carter on his old show, the WCCO Radio Morning News, Lee said he wants to make sure he doesn’t take up too much time on his acceptance speech, and says so with that humble and still sarcastic Dave Lee wit.
“Well, I'm sure that won't happen I gotta break for traffic and weather every ten minutes on the eights,” Lee jokes. “I don't want to, but it's just human nature for me. So I won't be very long. But I mean the whole thing about getting into the Hall of Fame was, I don't think ever on your radar.”
For Dave Lee, coming to WCCO was an adventure in itself. He explains that he was hesitant at first.
“Jon Quick was the Program Director that tried to hire me about 1987,” said Lee. “It just didn't work out and he came back and offered me again in 1989. Actually Julie, my wife, said, ‘well I don't want to have you saying ten years from now, I wish I would have tried that’. So that's actually how it happened. And Jon Quick, he had great confidence in me when I had none in myself. And he just assumed I’d get the job done. You need somebody to believe in you and love you, right? And then they give you an opportunity. When they put the pressure on you, I'm not going to tell you ‘good job’, I'm just going to tell you to do the job and get it done, get it done great. And that's how they were.”
Starting his time at WCCO, Lee still wasn’t sure about staying. Growing up on the farm in North Dakota and working initially in Fargo, Lee said that the “big time” nature of WCCO never really resonated with him at the time.
“Steve Goldstein was the GM and they hire me, because out of Fargo they're not sure what they're getting. I don't blame them, you know? But he said, ‘okay, we're going to sign you to a contract here, but remember the first three months are probation, we don't like you, and you’re done’. And I remember saying to Steve, I'm a small town kid, I didn't know, I said, ‘well, to be honest with you, if I don't like you in three months, I'll be leaving’. Because I didn't realize he was as powerful as he was or he was a big shot to me. He's just a regular guy. I was being honest man, I wasn't trying to be a smart-fill in the blank. But anyway, it worked out and they were very good to me.”
But work out it did, with Lee starting out working on the weekends, and eventually getting a chance to both work with, and fill-in for the legendary Boone and Erickson on WCCO’s Good Morning Show.
“I enjoyed coming to work most every single day and I worked with great people,” explains Lee. “Gosh, Boone and Erickson kind of adopted me, Steve Cannon became a really good friend. I guess the best example I can give is that for me, when I started at ‘CCO, it was like going into a library with all the classics of literature, and if you don't read the books that are there, it's your own fault. So I tried to figure out what those cats did, and it was just fun. It was a lot of work as you know. I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's a lot easier when it's fun to do and to go to work. Not every story is fun to cover in the newsroom all those years. So anyway, the people around me, let's be honest, that's what happened.”
First, Charlie Boone semi-retired with Lee then co-hosting the Morning Show with Roger Erickson who became a close friend and mentor.
Then, Roger decided it was time to walk away and the morning show became the domain of Dave Lee.
He continued to work in the tradition of Boone and Erickson, mixing the news of the day with fun, light-hearted conversation, and those famous “bits” that made fun of everything from politicians, to sports figures, to those Upper Midwest, Scandinavian traditions.
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Minnesota Hospital, Gil and Finn, and all the rest became hallmarks of the Dave Lee experience as much as the old bits of Boone and Erickson. For Lee, that was what made going to work enjoyable, and he thanked Carter for his contributions to the show as well.
“You go to work and you have fun,” said Lee. “Just think of the bits that (we did), Bill Pending: Freshman Legislator and then the hockey play-by-play.
You're nice enough to get up and come out to Minnesota Hospital many times. And that was half the fun, writing bits and doing that stuff. I enjoyed it as much as anything else I did.”
For Dave Lee, a big part of the job were the people he worked with behind the scenes, and that North Dakota farm life work ethic instilled in him by his father.
“You got people like Jimmy (Erickson, morning show Producer) and all the producers putting everything together for you as far as guests, and you're sitting and cooperating, and every day goes by and you just do what you do,” Lee says. “I grew up picking potatoes, hoeing beets, and throwing hay bales. My dad said work hard and don't expect anybody to pat your back and tell you a great you are. So you just kind of go to work and have fun and suddenly 32 years later, you realize, wait a minute, this has been a pretty good time. I don't really want to give it up, but it was just time for me to do that. It was great.”
The road for Lee was paved in hard work, that commitment to WCCO and its listeners, and making sure he enjoyed the work he put into his radio show. That road now leads him down a path to the Hall of Fame.
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