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JOHN STEWART KDKA
personality, school band leader
John Stewart drove a bus, operated a linotype machine and waited tables. He sorted mail, fought fires, and played bass with the Pittsburgh Symphony. And that was just in "John's Other Life." Tape recorder at his side, Mr. Stewart performed dozens of jobs for a radio series of that name during his remarkable 18-year stint at KDKA, where he thrived as one of Pittsburgh's most popular on-air personalities during the 1950s and 1960s. Mr. Stewart, whose real life was almost as varied as his on-air existence. died of an aneurysm Friday at a hospital in La Crosse, Wis. He was 83. A native of Copper Cliffs, Ontario, Mr. Stewart was a fixture on KDKA's evening lineup for most of his years at the station - during a time when radios still had a place in living rooms. He regularly interviewed the most famous celebrities of the era as the host of "Program PM" and offered news, weather and chatter in a supporting role on "Party Line." "Everyone in Pittsburgh felt they knew him because they listened to him every night on the radio," said Carrick High School teacher Roxane Gaal, his eldest daughter. "Everyone felt they were his friend." He got just as much satisfaction from his post-radio job as the band director at Hurst Junior High School in Mount Pleasant. An accomplished musician who mastered wind and string instruments, he encouraged his students to phone him at night if they hit a snag while practicing. At home, he kept his wife and three children in stitches. Gaal recalled the time when she asked him whether he had been injured in World War II. "Well," he told her, "I got hit in the eye with a trombone once." A sergeant with poor eyesight, Mr. Stewart never saw combat, only a director's baton in the Army Band. Mr. Stewart earned a bachelor's degree in music from the University of Wisconsin and a master's in school administration from the University of Chicago. Before the war he taught middle school in the small town of Soldiers Grove, Wis. After his discharge. he taught social sciences and music at a high school in Milwaukee. In 1947, he went into radio on a whim. His brother in-law, Ed King, was part of the husband-and-wife team on "Party Line," the original talk show format. King alerted Mt Stewart to an opening at WEDO, a station in McKeesport. Mr. Stewart got the job as announcer. He packed up his family and moved to Pittsburgh. Four years later. he landed a job at KDKA, the top station in the market. In
his early days at KDKA, he hosted the live quiz show
"Cinderella Weekend," during which the women who correctly
answered the most questions won weekend get-aways. Toward the end of his stay at KDKA, he hosted "Perspective," a three-hour show on Sunday evenings focusing on state and local news. Perhaps his most important achievement in radio came in the early 1960s, when he spent a week living with a family of six that was struggling to survive on $173 a month in welfare. He provided nightly reports for his listeners and lost seven pounds. The
Radio-Television News Directors Association honored Mr. Stewart for
those reports. Mr. Stewart hung up his microphone in 1969 to return to the classroom. He took the band director's job at Hurst Junior High and moved to a country home in the Mount Pleasant area. "His heart was always in the classroom," said Pittsburgh resident Sharon Blake, his youngest daughter. In 1987, he retired from teaching. Mr. Stewart and his wife moved back to La Crosse. Mrs. Stewart died two years ago. Mr. Stewart is survived by a son, Bruce Stewart of Virginia Beach, Va., his two daughters, a brother, Chuck Stewart of Milwaukee, and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were incomplete last night.
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