Advertisement

‘Polka Parade’ radio host Dick Sinclair dies at 91

Share

Former longtime La Cañada resident and broadcasting personality Dick Sinclair passed away last month in Palm Desert, where he’d made his home in recent years. He was 91.

Best known for his work on the syndicated “Polka Parade,” the affable Sinclair regularly accepted invitations to emcee events and to otherwise assist the La Cañada community, where he and his wife Marge lived for several decades.

According to an obituary that was published this month in the Desert Sun, Sinclair, born in 1925, knew by the time he completed high school that he wanted to become a radio announcer. During the summer following his graduation he took a gig at a Montana radio station. He then went on to study at the University of Utah until the beginning of World War II, when he enlisted and was assigned to the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in the South Pacific.

Join the conversation on Facebook >>

It was during the war that Sinclair, who established military radio stations on various islands including Guadalcanal — where he was based — launched “Polka Parade,” which featured, as its name suggests, polka tunes. According to the radio website laradio.com, Sinclair “first aired the show to an all-G.I. audience” and met another man who would also become well-known in the Southland for his broadcasting career, George Putnam.

After the war, Sinclair moved to Southern California, where in 1950 he began working at radio station KIEV. A program director and host, Sinclair also worked at station KFI, from 1954 to 1968, before returning to KIEV, where he remained until 2000, according to laradio.com. It was while he was with KFI that he developed the television program “Polka Parade” for KTLA and served as its host.

Recently, Sinclair hosted a radio show featuring polkas on CNN Talk Radio.

In an interview Wednesday, Cam Currier, a former associate of Sinclair’s, spoke highly of the broadcaster, both as a businessman and as a devoted father of four children.

“Dick was one of the most accomplished men I’ve ever met and one of the nicest men I’ve ever met,” said Currier, who worked with Sinclair at KIEV radio station in Glendale from 1980 to 1997. “He was a fine man, a very responsible man and he had a good family. He came up in an era of broadcasting that will never be seen again.”

--

Carol Cormaci, carol.cormaci@latimes.com

Twitter: @CarolCormaci

Advertisement