Fans repaying ailing ex-radio host

He had the deep sultry voice that woke up Seattle and kick-started the mornings back in the day. He also anchored those one-of-a-kind on-air Husky tailgate parties before each University of Washington football game.

Larry Nelson hosted the morning show on KOMO-AM Radio for 30 years, starting in the late 1960s. Now he's battling terminal lung cancer, and scores of people — broadcast colleagues and unacquainted listeners alike — are writing online testimonials to thank amiable, funny, personable "Lar."

"You were the start of good days and bad, holidays and special occasions, even the mundane days. ... you were always there. You were the soundtrack of the morning," Greg Coe writes on www.larrybnelson.com.

"My morning drives in the ever-worsening Puget Sound commute were made much more bearable listening to you," Dale Amundsen writes. "Occasionally, I actually found myself wishing that traffic jams would not break; you were the enjoyable-yet-unseen companion in my car."

Nelson reigned over the local airwaves back when KOMO was known as a "full-service" radio station: music, news, chitchat in between. Long before there were morning shock jocks, Nelson spun records, cracked Scandinavian jokes, recalled his childhood growing up in Redmond and ad-libbed as part of his "Breakfast Table With Larry Nelson" show.

Nelson couldn't be reached Tuesday, but his friends had a lot to say.

"Larry was the gold standard of morning-show broadcasters at that time," Pat Cashman, local TV and radio personality, recalled in an interview.

"He always sounded upbeat, happy, jokey and just set a tone that improved the rest of your day. And I thought that was a pretty huge thing for a broadcaster to do. I don't think you can go to school to learn how to be authentic."

Nelson's tenure as the station's mainstay personality shifted to an ancillary role in October 1996, when the station continued moving toward a singular news-talk format. He retired from the station in 1997 but continued to run a small local ad agency, said former station news director and longtime friend Stan Orchard, who created the Web site honoring Nelson.

"It just seemed like the only way to say what he meant to people. Holy cow, we don't want to wait until he's gone," Orchard said.

Doctors told Nelson, 70, he had stage-four lung cancer just this month. The news of Nelson's ailing health spread quickly, and hundreds of e-mails have since arrived at the Web site where his wife, Gina Nelson, posts updates.

The most recent post: awaiting word whether Nelson is a candidate for chemotherapy.

Florangela Davila: 206-464-2916 or fdavila@seattletimes.com