Beloved Polka King of W.Pa.

For more than 50 years, George Almasi spent his Sundays spinning polka records and taking requests and dedications from thousands of loyal listeners from all over Western Pennsylvania.

“This is happy music for happy people,” he would say.

“He made them feel like they were his best friend for the 30 or 60 seconds he was on with them,” said Mike Manko, program director at WIXZ 1360 from 1986 to 1992. “He had a charisma to relate to people to make them feel special.

“To this day, I have never seen a more loyal and dedicated group of radio listeners.”

Mr. Almasi, formerly of Monessen, died Monday at The Residence at Hilltop of complications from diabetes. He was 82.

After serving in the Air Force during the Korean War, Mr. Almasi worked as an electrical draftsman for Westinghouse for 22 years, then was district manager for U.S. Rep. Don Bailey, D-Greensburg, from 1979 to 1983.

Later in Harrisburg, from 1985 to 1997, he was a state deputy auditor general and then was director for Veterans Homes with the Pennsylvania Veterans Affairs Bureau.

“He liked helping people solve their problems,” said his sister, Dolores Almasi, of Rostraver.

He would stay in Harrisburg from Monday through Friday and then return to the Mon Valley on Friday evening, spending Saturdays prepping his radio programs and Sunday playing polka music, Ms. Almasi said.

“I don’t know how he did it all, but he did,” she said.

Mr. Almasi started his polka show after he had a heart attack at age 29, she said.

“He just liked doing it and making people happy,” Ms. Almasi said.

He had two shows, from 10 a.m. to noon on WIXZ, and from 2 to 4 p.m. on WESA in Charleroi.

Mr. Almasi also led polka cruises, taking groups of about 100 listeners on cruise ships, with a polka band, his sister said. They went to Europe twice, to Alaska, Hawaii and to the Mexican Riviera, she said.

Mr. Almasi didn’t have a “radio voice,” Mr. Manko said.

“He came in as George Almasi, flipped on the microphone, and he was George Almasi.”

Each Sunday, Mr. Manko said, Mr. Almasi would bring four or five people to the station with him to help answer the phones.

“The calls that came in for Sunday mornings was incredible,” he said.

For holidays, listeners would actually mail requests to the station, because there was so little chance of getting through on the phone lines, said Alan Serena, who worked at WIXZ for years before buying it in 1985.

Mr. Almasi wanted to introduce Mr. Serena to the Polish music scene in Pittsburgh and took him to a few Polish and Slovak clubs in the region.

“You would have thought I was walking through the doors with a superstar,” Mr. Serena said. “George had a massive following.”

His show was so popular, Mr. Serena continued, that the station charged more for a 60-second commercial on his program than it did for prime-time radio Monday through Friday.

Even when the station switched formats — becoming a talk station and later a business talk station — Mr. Almasi’s program stayed.

“It was a big deal for our radio station,” Mr. Serena said. “He was the Polka King of Western Pennsylvania.”

In addition to his sister, Mr. Almasi is survived by another sister, Jo Anne Dury, of Lorain, Ohio, and several nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Monday at James C. Stump Funeral Home, 580 Circle Drive, Belle Vernon. A blessing service will be held at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at funeral home with a Mass at 10 a.m. in the Church of St. Anne, Rostraver. Interment will follow in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rostraver.