NORTHAMPTON — An original employee of radio station WHMP and longtime voice of local high school sports and University of Massachusetts men’s basketball games, often honored for his involvement in civic affairs, died Saturday in Florida.
Joseph T. Fennessey, 93, died at the Douglas P. Jacobson Veterans Home in Port Charlotte, Florida, near his longtime winter home in Nokomis, according to his stepdaughter Carol Conz.
For Conz, Fennessey will be remembered for all he did to make Northampton, the adopted hometown for the New Jersey native, a better place.
“We called him Mr. Northampton or Joe Civic because that was the type of person he was,” Conz said.
Western Mass News anchor Dave Madsen was mentored in the broadcasting industry by Fennessey in the early 1970s at WHMP, but also learned about the importance of community involvement.
“Joe always believed you have to give something back, and I took some of that with me,” Madsen said.
“Joe was a Northampton institution” said his longtime friend Bill O’Riordan, of Goshen. “His great radio voice was a familiar memory for all of us growing up in Hamp.”
Born in 1923 in Orange, New Jersey, Fennessey enlisted for World War II as a communications specialist in the Army in 1943. As an infantryman, he was injured by shrapnel while in combat in Europe.
“He gave his leg to the country,” Conz said.
During the 11 months he spent recovering, including time at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., Fennessey received vocational training and participated in a radio workshop where his interest in broadcasting began.
In 1948, completing studies at New York University that began prior to the war at Seton Hall College, he joined an FM radio station in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then moved to the Pioneer Valley, working at WACE in Chicopee in January 1949. In December 1950, he arrived at WHMP as it began airing programs on 1400 AM.
As a disc jockey, Fennessey did an early morning show called Dawn Patrol, and in 1951 he became program director. He also served as a sports director, vice president and general manager at WHMP until his retirement in 1988.
For 26 years, Fennessey did play-by-play for high school sports, primarily basketball, both girls and boys, and football.
“He had a big broadcaster’s voice, always,” Conz said.
And he is credited for founding the UMass Basketball Network, describing the action for fans that included the 1970-71 season, when Julius Erving, the future Dr. J, made his mark in Amherst.
Many of his years courtside he was joined by the late Ray Ellerbrook, who is enshrined in the UMass Hall of Fame.
Madsen said Fennessey should be similarly recognized by the university for popularizing UMass games. “He should be in the UMass Hall of Fame for doing that,” Madsen said.
In 1980, Fennessey’s first wife, the former Barbara Drapeau, died following a lengthy battle with cancer. In 1982, he married Barbara Couchon, and they remained a couple until her death in 2009.
Though Fennessey had no biological children, he became close to many members of his second wife’s family, Conz said.
“He was a big part of our family,” Conz said, observing that he hosted her wedding, helped her youngest brother, John, graduate from high school, and enjoyed all his stepfamily and stepgrandchildren.
“He meant a lot to my siblings,” Conz said.
She recalls her mother dressing Fennessey up in costumes for Halloween, and him always being willing to have jokes played on him, especially during the holidays.
Charles DeRose, a former owner of the Gazette who owned WHMP with brother Peter until 1983, said Fennessey’s ability to laugh at himself made him a remarkable person.
“He had lost a leg during World War II, and like so many people who suffer that kind of disability, he compensated with a great sense of humor, and he was so much fun to be around,” DeRose said.
DeRose notes that Madsen and longtime Bloomberg Radio voice Charlie Pellett were among numerous broadcasters who came out of “the Fennessey school of training.”
“He was such a wonderful mentor at the radio station,” DeRose said.
Madsen stayed in touch with Fennessey, periodically visiting him in Florida to talk about the old days. “He took a chance on me, and I owe a lot to him,” Madsen said.
He recalls Fennessey being a stickler for precision, including instructing Madsen not to say “daylight savings time,” because the formal name is daylight saving time.
“‘Don’t ever forget it,’ he told me,” Madsen said.
Barbara Kuschka, traffic manager at WHMP, said Fennessey was her first boss when she joined the station in 1969.
“He was a very good guy to work for,” Kuschka said, adding she recalls visits to his summer home in Goshen, where he continued to spend time even after becoming a Florida snowbird.
Jenny Pelissier, who worked 11 years in WHMP’s sales department in the 1980s, appreciated Fennessey.
“He was a peach, he was the sweetest man,” Pelissier said.
His civic contributions earned him an outstanding citizen award from the Northampton Chamber of Commerce in 1971. He was a president of the Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce and the former Northampton Community Chest.
Fennessey was also chairman of the Northampton Industrial Development Finance Agency, served on the board of the Northampton Development Corp., on the development council at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, and on the board of trustees for Florence Savings Bank. He was involved with Riverside Industries, and was a lector and eucharistic minister at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church in Florence.
In 1979, he earned the Norman H. Drouin Award for boosting Hampshire United Way’s fund drive. But Conz said he may have taken the most pride in being named King Winter at the 1988 Northampton Winter Festival.
In a 1972 interview, Fennessey explained how he had put down roots in Northampton.
“I originally came here with the intention of staying a while and moving on to another station in a larger city, but I liked it here, bought a house and stayed. I have never regretted it.”
Though he relied on an artificial leg the rest of his life, those who knew him said it never slowed him down, and many likely didn’t realize his handicap.
At a time when the Northampton High School’s football broadcasting booth was only accessible by a ladder, Madsen said Fennessey always managed to climb the ladder and then maneuver his way inside.
Conz said in part because of his strong will, he could even get on the roof of the Goshen home whenever he needed to make adjustments to the antenna to ensure reception of the Sunday football games of his beloved New York Giants.
“Nothing stopped him,” Conz said. “He didn’t walk with a cane until much later in life.”
During his later years, Fennessey focused on gardening, reading and following politics, as well as continuing to root for the Giants. O’Riordan recalls that late Giants owner Wellington Mara gave Fennessey a football signed by the team for his retirement party.
Madsen was one of the last friends to see Fennessey, observing that he continued to have great conversations with his mentor and reminisce about how he had left a mark on the community.
“He was a good man, a decent man, and he lived a good life,” Madsen said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
