Radio host Deitz plans to retire
After 25 years on the air in Little Rock and a life in radio that has spanned twice that long, Corey Deitz is hanging up his mic.
Deitz, one half of the “Corey and Patrick in the Morning” show on KDJE The Edge 100.3, announced last month that he will retire at the end of the year. His last day live on the air will likely be Dec. 15, he says.
“I still love what I do. I feel like I’m still at the top of my game and the show has a lot of devoted fans,” the 70-year-old grandfather of six adds. “I’m so grateful to the listeners who have stuck with me all of these years. It really means a lot.”
But retirement had been on his mind for a while.
“I started thinking about it seriously about a year ago. I’ve been in radio for 50 years, including college, and I wanted to have more flexibility to spend time with my wife and our grandkids. I want to travel and not have to get up at 3 a.m.”
Deitz grew up in Clifton, N.J. He attended what was then Montclair State College in Montclair, N.J., and it was there that he got hooked on radio.
“A high school buddy of mine invited me to the campus radio station to hang out and I was just absolutely enthralled,” he says. “I was an English major and I was like, well, I don’t think I want to do English anymore. I want to do radio.”
He transferred to Kent State University and, after graduating with a degree in telecommunications, began the peripatetic existence of a radio lifer.
Deitz worked at stations in Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Virginia Beach and elsewhere. In 1998 he and on-air partner Jay Hamilton, who he’d been working with since 1990, came to Little Rock to host the morning show at a station owned by Equity Broadcasting. “The Corey and Jay Show” eventually settled at 100.3 The Edge, which is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. Hamilton left the program in 2012 and was replaced by comedian and show regular Patrick “Angry Patrick” Beam.
Deitz, who produces “Corey and Patrick in the Morning,” says he’s happy for the freedom given to him by the higher-ups at the station.
“They’ve been very hands-off. I guess they were happy with the results and didn’t want to mess with it. That’s kind of hard to find in radio.”
He has written several novels and non-fiction books, including “Shut Up: We All Have Issues!,” “The Cash Cage,” “The Radio Ate My Brain,” “Holy Shmit!,” and “Under the Popeye Rose.” His latest, “The Voices in My Head,” focuses on his career in Little Rock.
In his final weeks on air Deitz plans to replay highlights from shows over the years with Beam and Hamilton.
“Beginning in November we’re going to be doing a retrospective of both shows and let people have a little trip down memory lane,” he says.