RBR+TVBR has confirmed that Midwest Communications President/CEO Duey E. ‘Duke‘ Wright Jr. has passed away at the age of 83.
Wright, who died on Wednesday (12/21), started his radio career in 1958 as a teenage disk jockey at his family owned station in Wausau, Wisc., WRIG-AM. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he returned to manage WRIG and its FM companion, which he put on the air in 1964.
From those beginnings came a radio broadcasting career of over 40 years, during which he built a Midwest broadcasting empire, owning and operating 23 radio stations in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan.