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Veteran Dayton broadcaster Carl Day wanted an audience even as he died Wednesday at Hospice of Dayton, his daughter said.
“He waited for us to come into the room,” Holly Eggert said. “My brother was on one side of him and I was on the other. My husband was right behind me. He took his last breath with us holding him.”
Funeral arrangements are pending.
The severity of his condition came as a shock, his daughter said. Doctors at first were optimistic, and Mr. Day, a veteran of 50 years in broadcasting, had planned to share footage of his treatments on WGRT-TV and WKEF-TV, where he did commentary.
“He did not stop,” she said. “When he was down, he’d think about stories to do.”
Mr. Day, 72, couldn’t talk, but expressed joy upon learning that his family established his dream: A Brighter Day: The Carl Day Memorial Foundation to support young broadcasters.
“He had tears in his eyes when we told him last Tuesday,” Eggert said.
Mr. Day, a military brat born in San Diego, graduated from high school in Fairborn.
He worked for WHIO Radio and every Dayton television station, winning seven Emmys during his career.
Mr. Day’s wife, Donna, died Sept. 24, 2009, the day of his induction into the Dayton Walk of Fame.
Eggert said her father, a writer who acted in movies such as 2003’s “The Manson Family,” was devoted to community and auto racing.
“He’d race anything. He raced ostriches. He raced lobsters,” Eggert said. “Anything anyone asked him to do that was fun and silly, he’d do.”
WDTN-TV anchor Marsha Bonhart, Mr. Day’s co-anchor at WDTN and WKEF, called him tough and a broadcast legend.
“He knew how to tell a story. He was the every man and people loved him,” she said.
Dayton Daily News columnist Dale Huffman called Mr. Day the “Voice of Dayton” who hated saying no to fans and would even attend birthday parties.
“He felt like he was tremendously blessed,” Huffman said. “He felt like it was his obligation to give back.”
Forty people from Miles that Matter, a running group that supports charities, ran the U.S. Air Force Marathon the past two years as Carl’s Crew. They sold ribbons in Mr. Day’s honor for the Special Wish Foundation, a group close to his heart.
“He was such a giving man, such a loving man,” Miles that Matter organizer, Karen Cosgrove said . “The thing about Carl Day is that he was just so approachable.”
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