Monday, January 12, 2015

R.I.P.: Longtime Programmer/Talent Nick 'Bazoo' Ferrara

Nick 'Bazoo' Ferrara
Veteran Top40 PD/talent Nick (Bazoo) Ferrara died Friday in an accident on I-10 near Gulfport MS.

He was 59-years-of-age and according to his Facebook page was "working at retirement".

According to police, Ferrara was not wearing a seatbelt when his vehicle slammed into the rear of another car. He died of blunt-force trauma.

Ferrara worked in Happy Valley for some seven years and retired as operations amanager 18-months ago from Results Radio's WOWY 97.1 FM in State College, PA. He had been living near relatives in Gulport since then.

He had a long career in radio that began in New Orleans in the 1980m where he was operations manager for WLMG, WLTS and WWL.  Stops along the way included Gannett Broadcasting at KSDO in San Diego, KMEL San Francisco and B-94 in Pittsburgh during the '80s.

Steve Hilton, radio personality with B94, worked with Ferrara in State College and knew him for 10 years. Despite having a wealth of experience and working with notable figures in radio over the years, Hilton said Ferrara was humble and down to Earth. He was a “walking encyclopedia” that could rattle off not only song titles and artists but also trivia about the music he played, like the year songs were released and their peak chart positions.

Ferrara was also willing to help and coach newcomers to the business. He worked with interns from the College of Communication at Penn State and told them to always believe in and be themselves. The advice motivated and helped many to succeed, Hilton told the Centre Daily Times.

“He was probably one of the kindest hearted people you’d want to meet,” Hilton said.

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