Walton Marshall Bodine (August 27, 1920 – March 24, 2013) was an American broadcaster and author most notable for his career in Kansas City, Missouri. Better known as Walt, he was a fixture in Kansas City broadcasting for seven decades. Still broadcasting into his nineties, Bodine hosted the talk radio show The Walt Bodine Show on KCUR, the Kansas City area's NPR member station from 1983 to 2012. His final broadcast was April 27, 2012. Early life Walt Bodine was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the only child of Walton Martin and Mary Ethyl (née Gilmore) Bodine. His father was a pharmacist, prompting the family to move several times around the Kansas City area in Walt's youth until settling in the neighborhood around Linwood and Troost streets. He began working at his father's pharmacy as a teenager, a business that served the neighborhood as well as the famous and the notorious. Comedian Red Skelton was a customer, as was Kansas City gangster Johnny Lazia, the latter on the same evening he was assassinated in 1934. Walt Bodine's first experience with broadcasting came as a child when he appeared on a Kansas City radio station at age eight, performing a novelty song with his aunt. Bodine attended Westport High School, graduating in 1938. While there he participated in drama classes, learning skills that would prove valuable in his later broadcasting career. After high school he attended Jewish Community Center's Resident Theater, intending to become an actor. However the school closed after he had attended just one year. Career With his dreams of an acting career dashed by the closure of his theater school, friends suggested Walt Bodine consider a job in radio. A neighbor, Guy Ruyon, worked in radio already and became Bodine's mentor. In 1940 his first job in broadcasting came at KDRO, a new low-power AM station in Sedalia, Missouri. The job in Sedalia didn't last long however as Bodine was fired within a few months for mispronouncing the name of baseball player Joe DiMaggio during a sportscast. Bodine next moved on to KVAK in Atchison, Kansas. After almost a year in Atchison Walt Bodine took a position with KCKN, a station in Kansas City, Kansas owned by the Kansas City Kansan newspaper. By this time the United States was involved in World War II and Walt Bodine answered Uncle Sam's call to do his part. Bodine joined the