It may not have been Lou Gehrig’s immortal last words echoing off the walls of Yankee Stadium, but by Santa Barbara standards, it was the next best thing. Gary Fruin, early morning radio host for K-LITE 101.7 FM for the past 34 years — and all-around sports nut — was lovingly ambushed early Tuesday afternoon by a standing-room-only-and-then-some crowd at City Hall, a gathering orchestrated and instigated by his longtime co-conspirator of the early-morning air waves, Catherine Remak. Together, these two co-hosts bantered over the years with an enviable ease, offering a smart, informative, playful start to their listeners’ day.
K-LITE was — and is — a family-oriented, light-rock station, and Fruin and Remak alerted their listeners to all the possibilities Santa Barbara — a big town masquerading as a small city — has to offer. They were, in a word, good company; everyone with a show to plug or a community event to promote got interviewed.
That all came to an abrupt halt in April, when Fruin had to step away from the mic because the cancer he had dealt with in 2021 had come back. Naturally, he shared this news with his listeners. And they, in turn, showed up in droves this Tuesday as Mayor Randy Rowse issued their friend Gary — deep-voiced, quick-on-his-feet, dapper, laid-back, fun, authoritative, and easy to hang with — an honorary proclamation, purportedly to observe National Radio Day.
Fruin spoke briefly, talking about the Santa Barbara he originally moved to — working first for KIST radio and then K-LITE, meeting his wife, Camille Cimini Fruin — the longtime advertising executive at this paper with whom he has two daughters — and creating a life over his 44 years here in Santa Barbara. (A die-hard Celtics fanatic, Fruin moved here from Connecticut, where he grew up.)
At the council chambers, Fruin described what it was like to have been a fly welcomed onto so many people’s walls. “Oh my God, you’re Gary!” people would often say. “My mother used to have you on all the time.”
Gary was good company. But he was more than that, too. While today, radio might seem archaic — largely supplanted by the world of podcasts, TikTok, and other social media — Fruin recalled how in times of emergency — from the Painted Cave Fire of 1990 to the 1/9 Debris Flow after the Thomas Fire — radio was often all people had. It was their lifeline to information. When the internet crashed and the power was gone, those old transistor radios could — and still — fill the breach.
But for those radios to help, there had to be someone on the other end of the mic. For 40 years here in Santa Barbara, Gary Fruin has been that someone. And if all goes well, he will be again.
