Friday marks the 10th anniversary of Glenn Mitchell's death. Even with him gone for a decade, it's hard to imagine public radio in North Texas (and beyond) without Glenn's influence.
Glenn started working at KERA in the mid 1970s. He hosted the award-winning "Glenn Mitchell Show" from 1995 until 2005. He died Nov. 20, 2005. He was 55.
Glenn's interests were wide. He interviewed everyone from Salman Rushdie and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to performance artist Laurie Anderson and Academy Award-winning actor Robert Duvall.
A couple of weeks before he died, Glenn sat down with veteran newsman and "60 Minutes" correspondent Mike Wallace.
Mike had some high praise for Glenn during the show:
Listen to KERA's remembrance of Glenn from 2005:
Listen to Glenn's memorial service:
A look back at Glenn
We'll remember Glenn on Friday during KERA's "Anything You Ever Wanted To Know" and hear some more of his work. We'll also take your calls and share your memories of Glenn during the hour. "Anything You Ever Wanted To Know" airs from noon-1 p.m. on KERA 90.1 FM.
Remembering Glenn Mitchell
'Natural conversationalist'
Here's whatthe Dallas Observer had to say back in 2005:
That was a rule we routinely flouted when it came time to pick the best local radio talk show host. KERA's Glenn Mitchell and his eponymous afternoon show pretty much had a lock on that one, rule or no rule. For seven years running, either Mitchell himself or the show he hosted was singled out by our writers, readers or both as the best Dallas radio had to offer. It's not that we were lazy or that the talk radio landscape lacked competitors. Mitchell was that good: amiable, smart and intelligent. Whether interviewing actors, authors or ex-presidents, Mitchell was a natural conversationalist whose inquisitive mind and easygoing manner engaged both his interview subjects and listeners.
'Gracious, modest intellectual'
Here's Glenn's obituary:
Equally comfortable interviewing prominent politicians, authors and artists, Mitchell was a voracious reader who was often praised by his high-profile guests for the depth of his research and thoughtfulness and originality of his questions. He was also well-loved for his popular Friday shows, during which listeners would call in both the questions and answers to life's big and small mysteries, and for his annual 12-hour "Christmas Blockbuster," a 30-year tradition. A polymath who won 15 Dallas Press Club Katie Awards for his reporting on areas ranging from professional sports to science (and four more Katies for his daily talk show), Mitchell was a gracious, modest intellectual who loved baseball, dogs, opera and poetry in equal measure. He was one of a kind.
'Affinity for the quirky story'
NPR posted aremembrance in 2005. NPR said the network aired scores of his stories through the years:
Glenn's NPR stories ran the gamut, from hard news pieces about gun control to sports stories about the Dallas Cowboys to coverage of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. But he had an affinity for the quirky story: a documentary film about what women say in the ladies room, or Dachshund races in Dallas. One of his last pieces was about the challenge obituary writers face in doing justice to their subjects.
