LITTLE ROCK — Blande Perry was quiet, always wearing a smile. Once his crisp voice hit the airwaves, though, the radio announcer came alive.
“He loved it, he was a different person when he was on air,” said his daughter, Nancy Delgman. “He had a great radio voice ... it was totally different from his regular speaking voice. It was deeper, his enunciation was very precise.”
Perry, of Mayflower, died Monday at Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock from respiratory arrest.
He was 90.
Growing up in Blytheville, Perry and his brother spent many hours tinkering with crystal radios and tube-type radios.
“Engineering was his love,” his daughter said, adding he attended radio school in Memphis.
In 1943, Perry became an announcer and engineer at KLRA and helped move the station to North Little Rock. Throughout his 40 years at the station, Perry enjoyed doing remote broadcasts, including talking with the Harlem Globetrotters whenever they played basketball at Barton Coliseum, his daughter said.
At 5 a.m., the hour-long Blande Perry Show was the place to listen to the latest country tune, the news and farm reports.
“He went to work at 4 a.m.,” Delgman said. “We’d watch him through the windows and make faces at him and try to make him laugh while he was on the air.”
Once the show was over, he took care of all the equipment, often climbing the radio towers to replace the lights. Perry was home by 10 a.m., but did electrical work on the side and was always on-call if a radio signal went out.
“In the middle of the night ... he’d get them back on the air,” his daughter said. “That was back when it was tubes and everything else. He’d have to figure out what had gone wrong.”
Perry worked for several radio stations throughout the years, including KPAL in Sheridan, where he moved the radio tower by himself a few times.
“During these moves I was still keeping the KPAL [AM] on the air and responsible as manager ... engineer ... program director ... janitor ... as I was the only employee,” Perry wrote in a resume.
In the early 1970s, Perry and his wife moved to a cabin on Lake Conway where they enjoyed fishing off the dock.
Perry retired in 2001 when he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and the radio business changed.
“When it went all digital and computers, he couldn’t do it,” Delgman said. “He really didn’t like it. He thought that if people ... just punched buttons to fix things, it’s not the true working of a radio station.”
However, Perry kept busy by fixing up two sheds full of old radios and equipment. He also had spare parts and scraps of wood handy to repair anything.
“If something broke, he’d fix it 100 times before he’d ever have to go buy a new one,” said his granddaughter, Jennifer Bratton.
An avid motorcycle rider in his youth, Perry worked on fixing one up, but didn’t get to ride again.
“There’s still a motorcycle, or was, that was parked behind one of his sheds,” his daughter said. “He wanted to ride again, this was in his 80s.”
For 53 years, the family went on annual vacations to Florida. While Perry spent past vacations crabbing and deep-sea fishing, his last trip to the beach about a week before he died was relaxing.
“That’s probably the most calm I’ve seen him on vacation,” Bratton said. “He’d sit out on the balcony and watch the dolphins swim by and nap for the rest of the day.”
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 11/15/2012