Chicago radio newscaster remembered as dedicated worker, goofball
Barry Keefe was serious about his job.
The longtime Chicago radio newscaster started his career when he was 17 working for a radio station in Niles, Michigan, where he had moved as a toddler from Chicago's north side.
He attended Grand Valley State College and worked for a few years at radio stations in Michigan and Iowa before returning to the Chicago area in 1978 to join WTMX, also known as 101.9-FM — a place he stayed for three decades.
“He was a workhorse,” his oldest son, Alex Keefe, said. “He loved his job and he was an absolute perfectionist about it.”
Although work defined most of his life, there was another side to Keefe, whose booming voice was unforgettable to listeners and friends.
“I know of no one in this business that took their job as seriously as Barry or cherished it as much as he did,” Kathy Hart, co-host of the Eric & Kathy morning show, said via email. “But it was the moments on the air when he would, for example, recite the Top 10 Pirate Pick-up Lines in a pirate voice that you saw the true goofball that Barry was. He was always able to take off that newsman hat and play along with our goofiness whenever needed.”
Keefe died Sunday in his Wheaton home after a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 62.
Those closest to him remember Keefe as an incredibly curious and restless person who enjoyed history, cycling, golf, reading, puns, museums and talking to interesting people on the street. He loved the pace of big city news and had a mind that “was always working,” Alex said.
Keefe had a passion for helping his community, too. He spearheaded the WTMX volunteer fair, served on the DuPage executive board for Teen Parent Connection, helped with efforts to restore the Wheaton Grand Theater, led public relations efforts for Multiple Sclerosis Society walks and volunteered as an aide at Lincoln Elementary School in Wheaton.
Keefe's job evolved greatly over the years. At one point, he was a news director for the station, overseeing a staff of several people — a practice that is mostly “unheard of now” in FM radio, said Alex, who followed in his father's footsteps by working for Chicago Public Radio and, currently, Vermont Public Radio.
“The one thing that was always super important to my dad was keeping in mind who his audience was,” Alex said, which meant finding news that was relevant to Eric & Kathy listeners, particularly women ages 25 to 54. “A lot of times everybody goes in the same direction and my dad was not one of those people.”
Over the course of his career, Keefe won or shared more than 75 awards. In recent years, he also worked as an adjunct instructor at Columbia College and as assistant director of admissions at the Illinois Institute of Art.
Keefe's love for radio influenced his other son, Aidan, to pursue a career in music. In lieu of flowers, Keefe's family is asking for donations via ugift529.com with the code V04C3Z, to support Aidan's education at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he is a freshman. Keefe is also survived by his wife, Kathy.
A visitation is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at the Williams-Kampp Funeral Home, 430 E. Roosevelt Road in Wheaton. A short service will begin at 3 p.m.