After 34 years at Midwest Communications, where he’s been a mainstay on the air and off at WIXX-FM and then Y100 (WNCY-FM), Dan Stone is retiring from full-time radio.
He’ll bid listeners goodbye on his final midday shift from 9 to 11 a.m. Oct. 23 on Y100, where he’s also the brand manager.
He been at the Green Bay country station since 2006 but first introduced himself to northeast Wisconsin listeners in 1991 when he started at its Top 40 sister station, WIXX, as program director. He remembers the year, because it was the same time Brett Favre joined the Green Bay Packers. In between, in 2005, was a brief stint in the afternoons at Midwest’s former Fox Valley soft rock station, WROE-FM.
It has been a remarkable 54-year career in broadcasting for Stone, who got his start working part time at a station as a teen growing up in Marquette, Michigan. A Yooper who eventually left the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, he never left radio.
“It’s like that corny old saying they have that if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life,” Stone said. “I mean, I sound funny even saying it but … like my wife said, ‘This is really your hobby and you get paid to do it.’”
Y100 midday personality and brand manager Dan Stone will sign off from the Green Bay country station for the final time on Oct. 23. After 34 years with Midwest Communications, including a long run at its Top 40 station WIXX-FM, Stone is retiring from full-time radio.
He has felt so lucky to be able to do it all these years that he never really zeroed in on a retirement date. He remembers thinking on his birthday last year that he would give it another year and then see how it goes. When his birthday rolled around in August, he told himself, “I’m not going anywhere yet.”
As he and his wife of 52 years, Mindy, talked in the weeks since then, the timing seemed right to return to the U.P. His 93-year-old father still lives there in a house on the water. They’ll move in with him, not because he needs the help, but because it’s a chance to spend time together and enjoy all that nature has to offer up that way.
“Everything is great, but I want to make sure that I have time to enjoy all those things,” said Stone, who may do some part-time voice work for local stations there. “This is a job I’ve done since I was 15 or 16 years old and just to walk away from it is going to be very different, but I’m very excited about this.”
Stone is the second Y100 Yooper to feel the tug of home in recent months. On Aug. 1, morning show co-host and music director Charli McKenzie left the station after 20 years to move back to the Escanaba area with her daughters and be closer to family.
His Dan ‘The Man’ Stone nickname came from a 1980s movie
Stone got into radio after falling in love with it as a young listener. Sometimes people like him reach a point in their 30s when they realize it’s not a career that’s going to make them a lot of money and they “get a real job,” he said.
“I never had that moment, so I just stayed with it and stayed with it,” he said. “It has been a great ride. I love being on the air and, at the same time, I love helping other people with their careers, because it’s the air personalities, the big ones, that really make me look good. I’m a decent announcer and stuff like that, but it’s the real personalities that make a station great.”
Listeners know him as Dan “The Man” Stone, a nickname that came from the 1987 movie “Good Morning, Vietnam,” where the person with the next on-air shift after Robin Williams’ DJ character was Dan “The Man” Levitan. Stone used it with his own name one day as a joke and it stuck.
As for concerts, he’s been to far too many to count during his half-century in radio.
“I can’t tell you how many … but all of them,” he said, especially when it comes to country shows in his last 19 years with Y100.
He’s met countless country artists as they were just starting out and watched them grow into arena and stadium headliners. He’s seen how willing they are to do interviews or be a part of station benefits for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“That’s one thing I’ll say about country artists is they really are accessible and appreciate the support of their fans and of country radio. That’s something I did not get when I was in rock radio,” he said. “Most of the people are genuinely nice that I’ve met.”
Y100 listeners are like family, with one on-air call unforgettable
He insists his long career has more to do with the listeners than it does him. Without so many of them he says he wouldn’t have been able to stick around for so many years at two stations with consistently high ratings. He knows a lot of them by name, and some come to community events just to say hello. It’s a connection that transcends any playlist.
“I think that great radio stations are not just about the music. Anybody can play music, but it’s really about companionship, and that’s what I tried to bring to every radio station that I worked with. It was especially prevalent with Y100, because the Y100 listeners, they love the music, No. 1, and they love the radio station, and they love the people who are on the radio station,” Stone said.
“We even call them the Y100 family, and I’m not kidding about that. Some of the phone calls and live interactions person to person I’ve had with these people, you would swear that they were like an actual member of your family.”
One that has forever stuck with him is a relative who called into Y100 with an on-air request for a loved one who had passed away. They asked the station to play “When I Get Where I’m Going” by Brad Paisley featuring Dolly Parton as the funeral procession drove by the studios.
“The radio station was her final request,” Stone said. “Boy, it would be tough to top that one. That’s probably the best phone call I ever got at any radio station right there.”
More: Former Packers player lands a sweet cameo in Door County movie ‘A Wisconsin Christmas Pie’
He’s grateful to Duke Wright, the late president and CEO of Midwest Communications, his wife and board chair, Pegge Wright, and the extended Wright family, along with vice president of programming Jeff McCarthy and operations manager Jason Hillery, for his time with the company. All the late concert nights, weekend festivals and long days wouldn’t have been doable without Mindy’s support.
“I want to make sure I credit these people, because a lot of times people go out and it’s just all about me, me, me, me, and I don’t want to be like that,” Stone said. “That was always me, humble Dan in the midday.”
If his final on-air shift for Midwest wasn’t on a country station, he might have picked “With a Little Help from My Friends” or “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” for his final song before he signs off. He’s still working on his format-friendly track.
What his days will look like without full-time radio at the center, Stone’s not sure.
“I will have to obtain some skills outside of radio and see if I’m good at anything else. I’m not sure I will be,” he said, laughing. “I’m looking forward to a whole new future. I don’t know what it will bring exactly, and maybe that’s part of the fun.”
Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or [email protected]. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Dan Stone is leaving Y100 and heading north after 34 years at Midwest
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com ’
