The deep, midday voice of WKAR’s Steve Jensen unexpectedly signed off one last time last week.
Family and colleagues were stunned when word spread that the veteran reporter and talk-show host for the university-owned public radio station died early Friday morning of a brain hemorrhage.
“Him having this was completely out-of-the-blue,” said Melissa Ingells, classical music producer for WKAR (870-AM). “We heard him doing his last show on Thursday and it seemed fine.
“We’re all still pretty much in shock around here.”
Jensen, 55, was brought to Lansing’s Sparrow Hospital Thursday night shortly after wrapping up his final broadcast.
He died hours later.
The Okemos resident had worked full-time at the station, which is affiliated with National Public Radio, since 1967. In 1983, he took over the station’s noon slot of News/Talk 870 - a local call-in show.
He and his guests covered a variety of lifestyle topics ranging from diet and nutrition to exercise to gardening, photography and money management.
Ingells had worked with Jensen since 1989, when she helped him coordinate talk shows.
“He had a marvelous sense of humor - very witty,” she said. “He was very well-informed. If he didn’t have the answer, he knew somebody who did.”
In recent years, his show was trimmed to just three days a week, from Tuesdays through Thursdays, to allow for his partial retirement. But that didn’t spoil Jensen’s enthusiasm, some say.
“He enjoyed broadcasting,” his wife Mary Ann said. “He could translate listeners’ questions into something guests could understand.”
Jensen said her husband was a very outgoing man and an active member of the MSU community, attending football games and other activities. He is survived by his wife and his daughter Erika, a zoology freshman at MSU.
“He was a very, very good father,” Mary Ann said.
Jensen was also a member of the U.S. Power Squadron, a national group that advocates boating safety and responsibility. He was chairman of the national marketing committee for that organization. An avid boater, Jensen owned a 35-foot Chris Craft Commander, named @Sea.
Psychology Professor Gary Stollak had been a monthly guest on Jensen’s show for the past nine years. He said Jensen had the ability to keep on-air conversation exciting and interesting - even when nobody was calling in.
“I found him very, very well-read,” Stollak said. “He was very appropriate on-air. He asked questions that were relevant to the news of the day.”
Stollak recalled that he and Jensen used to joke that the two should be on the radio later at night so they’d be able to put the listeners to sleep.
“He was one of the few people I know whose voice was deeper than mine,” he said.
Memorial services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the Alumni Chapel on Auditorium Road.
Instead of flowers, Jensen’s family requests that donations be given to WKAR Radio.
