Norman Rockwell missed his best chance to paint a classic scene; a morning radio man in his studio surrounded by his trusty turntable and antiquated cart machines, a tableau that hadn’t changed in 61 years. Rockwell would have loved to illustrate the subject, too. A man committed to keeping his community’s small town, down home, unassuming way of life intact. For his unparallel dedication to WAUD and his audience, the ABA is honored to induct Bob Sanders into the Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

“Just ecstatic! We are just absolutely thrilled, and over the moon that he would be recognized in such a way”, says Dr. Cythia McCarty about her father’s induction. “It is just the greatest honor and I’m so appreciative.”

“When he would get up at 4:30 in the morning and walk out to the car, I would peek out the curtains in my bedroom and see him walking out with his thermos of coffee,” she smiles. “He did that six days a week. He went in early to open the station and get things ready before they went on the air.”

From 1955 until his retirement in 2016, Sanders managed to let his audience know what was happening in Auburn while entertaining them with folksy stories at the same time.

“He had his fake helicopter,” grins McCarty. “He would play the sound and say, ‘Oh, what do we see out on South College this morning’, and then he’d make up the stories.”

“The way he could paint a picture – you had no doubt in your mind exactly what he was saying,” says Brooke Myers, general manager at Tiger Communications. “Theater of the mind – that was his number one thing. That was huge. I learned about it in school, but I didn’t really grasp it until I listened to Bob.”

“People that grew up here talk about how listening to Bob’s radio show was their morning routine. They got in the car and there was Bob on their radio.”

Sanders had his daily routine, too.

“He would finish up his morning show and then before he would go out and try to sell ads and then come back for the classical hour, he would have coffee with a group of men,” says his daughter.  “They would just tell stories and exaggerate and have a good time.”

“He was one of those rare people that would go and actually and sell their own show,” says Myers. “He knew everybody and everybody knew that he was for real.”

Once Sander’s health got to the point that working was difficult for him, he retired.

 

“When he was gone, there was definitely something missing,” says Myers. “He’d make his rounds every day and when he got off the air he would come say ‘hey’ to me. There was definitely a hole.”

Myers made sure that Sanders was represented at the station long after he retired.

“We had to take the turntables out of the studio, but one of them is on display in the lobby,” she says. “He had all the records organized by the Dewey Decimal System and I have the old card catalog. We built shelves for his records, And I’ve still got his carts. One of them says ‘helicopter’. I really wanted to keep the sound effects.”

I think about him every day.”

“You know, Dad was like an ambassador for Auburn,” explained McCarty. “He adored my mother and that he had two heathy happy kids and now grandkids. But beyond that, I would say that he would be proud of positive legacy in the Auburn area.”

Bob Sanders died Jan. 11, 2018, at the age of 86.