by KYW's Pat Loeb
Long-time Philadelphia talk radio personality Irv Homer, 85, collapsed and died on Wednesday evening, just after offering opening remarks at a program featuring an author at Eastern University.
Homer had just delivered a ten-minute introduction in front of several hundred people, when he collapsed on-stage. Attempts were made to revive him, but he was later pronounced dead at Bryn Mawr Hospital of an apparent heart attack.
The program was sponsored by KYW's sister-station WPHT-1210. CBS Radio-Philadelphia market manager Marc Rayfield, who was in the audience, says the thoughts and prayers of the CBS family go out to Irv Homer's family. The evening's program was canceled after Homer took ill.
Colleagues remember him as very different in person than his persona on the air.
Irv Homer could often sound cantankerous in his role as champion of the little guy on his various talk shows over the years.
But his boss at WBCB, Merrill Reese, says he was one of the most likable people he ever met:
"He had such a big heart and devoted so much time to the children in the Sunshine Foundation. His work in relation to the Sunshine Foundation was absolutely tireless."
Homer took an unconventional route to broadcasting. He started out as a bartender and got his first job on WEEZ in Chester because he called to challenge the host so often.
KYW's Dave Madden later worked with Homer at WWDB:
"Irv was an unknown entity to most of the Delaware Valley when he first went on the air but certainly over the course of time, he became a broadcasting legend around here."
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