Clay Huntington the 89 year old owner of KLAY Radio has passed away. Although Huntington had been hospitalized intermittently over the past seven weeks, his death surprised his family and friends. Huntington was a sports and civic icon in the Tacoma area. ?It?s a sad day for our community,? Tacoma sports historian Marc Blau told the local paper. ?When you think of how many people Clay touched, it?s amazing. He had a hand in politics, sports, broadcasting, civic affairs, you name it. And while there might be somebody who didn?t like him, I can?t think of one.?
Huntington had been hospitalized over the past seven weeks but his death surprised his family and friends.?I?m in shock,? Huntington?s son Ron told the News Tribune. ?I expected him to make a full recovery, because he remained sharp as a tack. But he started hemorrhaging Tuesday night ? he needed two units of blood ? and the doctors were doing tests to determine the cause when he went into cardiac arrest.?
Huntington?s interest in broadcasting began as a child, ?at the age of 10 or 11,? he recalled in ?Playground to the Pros: An Illustrated History of Sports in Tacoma-Pierce County.? By the time the former Lincoln High School student was 19, in the fall of 1941, he was conducting radio interviews on KTBI. Huntington would remain in the broadcasting industry for the next seven decades, working behind the microphone on radio and TV and, later, at KLAY, the Lakewood radio station had he owned since 1991. During the 1950s, Huntington and Rod Belcher re-created wire accounts of big league baseball games for a 14-station radio network in Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
In addition to his son Ron, Huntington is survived by his daughter, Cheryl. Huntington?s youngest son, Mark, died in 1996 after a long illness.
Our thanks to Bruce Bond, KLAY Radio Program Director and the News Tribune for sharing this story.
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