Bob CollinsDuluth radio legend Pat Cadigan has died, KDAL reports.
Cadigan started with the station in 1961. He got into radio the old-fashioned way; he worked the overnight shift before becoming the morning host through 1974, taking time off to sell real estate, and then returning to the station in the ’80s.
He was known as “Pat the Cat” in his day, one of the first to play rock ‘n’ roll in Duluth, which earned him a mention in Bob Dylan’s book.
For 13 years, he also hosted a Saturday polka show.
“We went to the top of the charts, and I could never have done that without Pat Cadigan,” polka band legend Florian Chmielewski, 90 now, tells the Duluth News Tribune’s John Lundy.
“He was really exciting when he came back in the early ’80s,” his long-tiome cohost, Rik Jordan, said, describing local AM radio the way it used to be. “He was really rocking and bopping and jumping. The control room, it really hopped. … When I came to work with him in the morning I had to calm him down.”
Cadigan suffered a stroke a few months ago. He was 81.
