Orion Samuelson obit

Chicago broadcast legend Orion Samuelson dies at 91

 He was not on the list.

CHICAGO — Chicago has lost a broadcasting legend. And farmers across America have lost an advocate and friend.

Orion Samuelson died Monday, WGN Radio announced.

Samuelson brought agriculture to life through his decades of reports on WGN Radio and television. 

Samuelson spent 60 years broadcasting until his retirement in 2020.

He grew up on his family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin, then went into the radio business.

He joined WGN Radio in 1960 and announced the news of President Kennedy’s Assassination.

He hosted a show called Top of the Morning on WGNTV during the 1960s.

Samuelson went on to host a farm show with Max Armstrong that was syndicated to 150 small TV markets across the country.

His love of the farming beat took him to 44 countries over the years. He was known  as “the American farmer’s best friend” and is in the Radio Hall of Fame.

Samuelson would have been 92 on March 31.

He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2003.

Samuelson was born on a dairy farm in Ontario, Wisconsin, near LaCrosse. Growing up on the farm Samuelson was expected to take over the family business, but a leg disease made it impossible to do heavy work. He considered becoming a Lutheran pastor before deciding on six months of radio school. His early work was based in Wisconsin, at WKLJ in Sparta, WHBY in Appleton, and WBAY-TV/AM in Green Bay.

Samuelson was heard on WGN radio in Chicago for sixty years as the station's head agriculture broadcaster from 1960 through 2020, getting the job after his predecessor Norm Kraft abruptly resigned from his position on-air. In May 1960, one of Mr. Samuelson's first assignments for WGN was to emcee the National Barn Dance, a long running program that WGN had just acquired when WLS radio discontinued its association with Prairie Farmer magazine. WLS had converted to "The Station With Personality" and started playing rock 'n' roll. Three years into his tenure at WGN, Samuelson was the staffer who read the news of the John F. Kennedy assassination. His career led him to have dinner at the White House and travel to 43 countries  including Cuba, where he shook hands with Fidel Castro, Moscow where he met with Mikhail Gorbachev, and England to broadcast live from the Royal Agricultural Show. He traveled with the Secretary of Agriculture and the Prime Minister of India to see the Taj Mahal. He interviewed and/or met every US president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump, including John F. Kennedy (when he was still a Senator), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, and additionally, after he was 20 years out of the Oval Office, Harry S. Truman.

During the 1960s, Samuelson hosted an early-morning show on WGN-TV, Top 'O' the Morning, first with organist Harold Turner, then with Max Armstrong. From 1975 to 2005, Samuelson was the host of U.S. Farm Report, a weekly television newsmagazine dedicated to agriculture. U.S. Farm Report continued without Samuelson after his departure. Samuelson hosted a similar show, This Week in Agribusiness, along with his longtime collaborator Max Armstrong, until his retirement, and continues to make occasional commentaries on that show with Armstrong as host. Both shows aired on 190 Midwest stations via first-run syndication.

Politically, Samuelson was a Republican; he supported the production of ethanol fuel from corn, to help American farmers. In 2004, Dennis Hastert approached Samuelson about running for office against Barack Obama in the 2004 United States Senate election in Illinois; Samuelson, though he was eager to enter the race, was forced to decline due a throat infection that doctors and his wife warned would be fatal if he attempted the campaign.

On the lighter side, Samuelson and a studio group dubbed the "Uff da Band" once recorded covers of Yogi Yorgesson's novelty songs I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas and Yingle Bells. Samuelson held the same position in the broadcasting industry for 60 consecutive years through 2020, second only to Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network announcer Vin Scully.

In 2001, Samuelson was named a laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the Order of Lincoln – the highest award bestowed by the State of Illinois. The University of Illinois presented Samuelson with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. He was honored at the 2010 Wisconsin Corn/Soy Expo in Wisconsin Dells. Samuelson received a custom-engraved Norwegian horse plaque to commemorate the occasion from presidents of the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the Wisconsin Soybean Association, the Wisconsin Agri-Services Association, and the Wisconsin Pork Association. On December 9, 2010, the southwest corner of E. Illinois St. & N. Cityfront Plaza Dr. was named 'Orion Samuelson Way' by the city of Chicago. In 2014 he was awarded the VERITAS award by American Agri-Women (AAW) Organization