Dick Carey’s biography, written by his son Richard, tells the unusual and tragic story of one of WMIK’s very first announcers.
Born in Paducah, Ky., my father was raised mostly in the St. Louis area. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade, at the age of 14 or 15, probably in the year 1938. He had an adventurous and somewhat romantic spirit, as he set off to see the country, hopping freights, working odd jobs. In October of 1942 he presented himself to the army recruitment center in St. Louis, and entered the service.
He trained and served as a radio operator in the Pacific. At one point, he was stationed alone on an uninhabited island where he monitored Japanese shipping activity and submitted reports by radio. He was supposed to be there for only a few days before being relieved, but during a brief reversal, the Japanese cut off the area from American access and he wound up stranded for a few weeks. After using up his rations, he lived off the land. When his outfit finally rescued him, he was so thin he looked as if he'd been living in a concentration camp. Nevertheless, he continued to serve until the end of the war. He earned a Good Conduct medal and a Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one star. He was honorably discharged in late 1945.
The war and his military experience matured him, to a degree. At twenty-one, he reentered civilian life as a handsome, charming young man with a "big voice." He was well spoken, and a natty dresser.
He attended a radio and television school in Kansas City, where he met my mother, charmed her, and wed her. He found his heart's vocation in broadcast media, and he intended to pursue a career in radio or television. First he landed a job in a station in Butte, Montana, but my mother, now pregnant with me, hated the place and didn't want to have a child there. She went back to her parent's home in Western Pennsylvania to have the baby. My father, of course, followed after.
He worked odd jobs in the Western Pennsylvania. area for a while. In 1948 he landed a job in Middlesboro, Kentucky at WMIK. The family moved there, and he would remain at WMIK for about two years.
After he left WMIK, he went to Kansas City, then to Pensacola, then to Alabama. I can only speculate as to what was going on in my parent's lives. Perhaps, while matured by the war, he still was having a difficult time settling down, looking for the right big break. They were difficult years for the family.
In August of 1952, he planned to drive home from Alabama to St. Louis to see his parents. He was ever a respectful and devoted son. Somewhere along the way, on a dark country road, he went over an embankment. Dick Carey died on the way to the hospital, at the age of twenty eight.
Richard I. Carey, Jr.
I was born in Ellwood City, Pennsylvania, but raised mostly in Cincinnati. I dropped out of college in my sophomore year in 1968. My guiding light at the time was a writer named Jack Kerouac, and I was very much a child of my era. I traveled around the country, working as a merchant seaman on the Great Lakes, gandy dancer (itinerant track worker) for the Burlington railroad in Kansas City, free spirit in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district, and so on. I guess I must have inherited my father's eagerness to see and challenge the world.
In 1970, at the age of twenty one, I settled down in New Orleans, and spent a couple of years working as a carpenter/painter on a major renovation project for an antebellum Garden District house. While working, I attended Tulane and then the University of New Orleans, majoring in English. I then landed a spot with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Smith, working for that outfit for about three years.
In 1977, I became unhappy and dissatisfied with my life. For the next two years, I went through my own cycle of hard times, traveling here and there across the country. I landed in Seattle in the Spring of 1979, intending to go to Alaska. But Seattle seemed to suit me. I set up a small business as painting contractor. One of my customers took a liking to me and hired me on as bookkeeper and office manager of a popular French restaurant in downtown Seattle.
In 1984, I got into the advertising business. My timing was lucky. It was a rapidly growing company. I had the skills and talent to get on board, and quickly rose to the management level.
Married my own saving angel, Diane Patrikas, in early 1989, and in November of that year, my daughter Nina was born. Tired of the advertising business, but set up fairly well because of it, I took a couple years off and fulfilled a dream ambition. I wrote two novels. Couldn't sell them, but I really enjoyed the experience of writing them; got it out of my system. When I reentered the workforce, I decided to take a shot at the software business, at first in a marketing, business management role, but eventually finding my way to Microsoft Press where I began my editorial career. I now hold a position as Senior Technical Editor at the company.
Richard Carey
Technical Editor
.NET Framework SDK
"He not busy being born is busy dying."
Bob Dylan
GRAND OPENING OF ZEKE’S RECORD SHOP
DECEMBER 4TH 1948
The man on the mike is our program director, Hal Bigger.
The man behind the counter looking sleepy is John Hutten,
a combination man.
Behind Hal is the man who owns the place, Chas Dunaway.
Closest to the camera is Don Saladay, our newsman.
Of course, on the left is the station’s new addition, Dick Carey.
Below are two Christmas carols sung by Dick Carey while at WMIK. It may be the only surviving audio from his time at the station.
