Without a doubt, those who listened to Dale “The Truckin’ Bozo” overnight show on WLW-AM have long considered him a legendary local radio personality.
Now it’s official.
Sommers, who died in 2012 at age 68, has been inducted into the national Radio Hall of Fame as one of eight “legends.” The Chicago-based Hall of Fame also inducted soap opera pioneer Irna Phillips, who wrote for Procter & Gamble’s Guiding Light, As The World Turns, and Another World.
Sommers is the third WLW-AM alum to be enshrined in the Radio Hall of Fame, joining longtime afternoon humorist Gary Burbank and Reds radio announcer Marty Brennaman.
Sommers’ son Sean Compton, also a former WLW-AM staffer, says the family had no idea before the news was announced earlier this month.
“I’m beyond thrilled, and I know he would be as well,” says Compton, president of the Nexstar Networks which include the CW, NewsNation and Antenna TV. “He was in radio his entire professional career. Most of those years he spent in Cincinnati, but he also worked in Evansville, Kansas City, Indianapolis, San Diego, Miami, and finished his career nationwide of Sirius/XM.”
He’s best known for his 20 years (1984-2004) as the midnight-5 a.m. “Truckin’ Bozo” country music host on WLW-AM, a 50,000-watt signal which reaches 38 states at night. WLW promoted the show by claiming he was heard “from the Garden State to the Golden Gate.” Most of his listeners and callers were long-haul drivers who would call Sommers on his “Bozo phone.”
Sommers first worked for Cincinnati radio wiz Randy Michaels in 1977 at a Kansas City station. That’s where he got his nickname. When the two were touring a studio about to be remodeled, Sommers knocked down a wall with a karate kick, he told the State Gazette in Dyersburg, Tenn. Michaels looked at the mess and said, “you bozo!” The next day on the air Sommers introduced himself as “Dale Sommers, your afternoon Bozo.” The phone lines lit up with listeners wanting to talk to “the Bozo.”
While at WLW-AM, Sommers was involved with helping solve two out-of-state crimes. In 1986 he helped catch a robbery suspect in Camilla, Georgia. While chatting off-air with a regular listener from a 24-hour store in Camilla, he heard her tell someone, "You can't come back here," before hanging up the phone. Sommers called Camilla police, who apprehended the man within minutes. The incident prompted People magazine to profile Sommers.
In 2002, truck driver Ron Lantz was listening to The Truckin’ Bozo Show while driving on I-70 in Maryland and heard Sommers give the description of a dark blue 1990 Chevy Caprice with New Jersey license plates wanted in the “Beltway Sniper” shootings in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Lantz, of Northern Kentucky, noticed the car parked in a rest stop and called 911. Police quickly responded and asked Lantz and another trucker to block the exit. Suspects Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad were arrested while sleeping in the car.
The Radio Hall of Fame praised Sommers for informing and entertaining late-night truck drivers. “His overnight show achieved ratings levels that were the envy of many drive-time radio hosts while serving as a tireless advocate for truck drivers and promoting their causes,” says his Radio Hall of Fame bio.
Irna Phillips
According to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, the eight “legends” were immediately added this month to the Radio Hall of Fame, including Phillips, the “Queen of the Soaps.”
The Chicago native started her career teaching drama and theater history in Dayton, Ohio, from 1925 to 1930. She acted in several radio productions at Chicago’s WGN-AM before launching her writing career at the station. The third soap opera she created was her breakout hit, The Guiding Light (known as Guiding Light post-1975).
Phillips was “integral in that (radio daytime drama) process, creating, producing, and writing several radio shows including The Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, The Edge of Night and Another World to name a few. Her style was geared specifically towards attracting female radio audiences," according to her Radio Hall of Fame bio.
“Phillips would become known as ‘Queen of the Soaps,’ introducing such techniques as the organ music bridge to give a smooth flow between scenes and the cliff-hanger ending to each episode. When these serials came on television, Phillips was a major player creating the first serial broadcast on a major television network,” her bio states. She died in Chicago in 1973 at age 72.
Ten new members for the Radio Hall of Fame Class of 2025 will be honored at the 2025 Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony Thursday, Oct. 30, in Chicago.
The class of 2025:
- NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon
- Sports talk host Colin Cowherd
- Rocker/DJ Alice Cooper
- DJ and former MTV VJ Martha Quinn
- Detroit Mojo in the Morning host Tom Carballo
- Dallas DJ DeDe McGuire
- Mike McVay, a radio consultant based in Avon Lake, Ohio
- Bob Lacey and Sheri Lynch, host of the syndicated Bob & Sheri Show from Charlotte, N.C.
- Shelley “The Playboy” Stewart, voice of Birmingham (Ala.) civil rights movement in the 1960s on WENN-AM
- Julie Talbott, president of Premiere Networks
