George Weber, the former Denver radio personality in the ’80s and ’90s found stabbed to death in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment Sunday, was a serious newsman with a prankster streak, his colleagues said Monday.
“He was creative and entertaining. He worked very hard. He had two or three stories going at once,” said Kris Olinger, director of AM programming for Clear Channel Radio, which includes 850 KOA, one of the stations where Weber had worked.
Weber, 47, worked at WABC-AM in New York for 12 years, until he was let go amid programming changes last year. He had since worked as a freelancer for ABC News Radio.
He was found stabbed in the neck and chest about 9 a.m. Sunday after he failed to show up for a shift at ABC News on Saturday.
“He was the consummate newsman,” said Susan Witkin, who worked with Weber both at KOA and at KGO Radio in San Francisco.
Weber had wanted to be in radio so badly as a young boy growing up in Pennsylvania that he built a radio studio in the basement of his home. Weber got his first radio job while he was in high school at WBUX in Doylestown, Pa., about 30 miles north of Philadelphia.
KOA managing editor Jerry Bell remembers noticing how good Weber was the first time he heard him on air. “He had a real passion for radio,” Bell said. “He had a way of capturing sound (during his broadcasts) and taking you to the scene.”
Weber eventually migrated from news reporting to talk-show host, where he quickly honed the art of the on-air prank. For one, he urged listeners to honk their horns as they drove past a Denver hotel in the middle of the night to disrupt the sleep of a football team that was to play the Broncos the next day.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
