When radio personality Bob Lopez died in May 2005, after 27 years on 98 Rock, his bosses knew finding someone to fill his shoes wouldn't be easy.
"We had lost a guy who had been on the air almost since the birth of the radio station," said Dave Hill, at the time three years into his tenure as program director at WIYY-FM (97.9). "After Lopez died, by just playing music and highlights of Lopez's career, it gave the audience time to reflect. It also gave us the chance to step back for a second. ... It was kind of almost like a healing process."
Four months passed before Hill and the management team at 98 Rock slid Josh Spiegel into the station's news slot. By that time, Lopez's fans were ready to move on with their radio lives, and the transition went as smoothly as could be expected.
But replacing a prominent radio or television personality is never easy, especially while the loss is still fresh in listeners' memories. For the staff at Baltimore's 92Q, still grappling with the loss of popular DJ Khia Edgerton, better known as K-Swift, the thought of replacing her remains too painful, too unwieldy.
"None of us have healed enough even to think about it," says Howard Mazer, vice president and general manager for WERQ-FM's parent company, Radio One Baltimore. "Nobody is even interested in dealing with it."
For now, K-Swift's partner, Squirrel Wyde, will be going it alone in the 6 p.m.-10 p.m. weekday slot. Mazer doesn't know when, or even if, Squirrel will get another partner. "We're going to wait," Mazer says, "until we can all look ourselves in the eyes and say, 'OK, it's time to talk about this.' "
In Baltimore, a city famous for clinging tightly to its TV and radio personalities, for cherishing longevity and familiarity above all else, the death of someone we're used to seeing or hearing on the air hits hard. Fortunately, it hasn't happened often, maybe never before as suddenly and unexpectedly as K-Swift, who died of neck injuries July 21, after a pool accident at her home.
But regardless of the particulars, the process of loss and moving on is never easy. "No one writes a book about how to handle this," says WIYY's Hill. "When I went to business school, they certainly didn't teach me how to manage the loss of an on-air personality."
