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Australian radio legend Bob Rogers has died at the age of 97.
Rogers began his career as a panel operator in Melbourne in 1942, before going on to work in Brisbane and Sydney on 2SM, 2GB and 2CH, before retiring in 2018.
Rogers was awarded an OAM in 2010 for his contribution to broadcasting.
Rogers spent an extraordinary 78 years in the radio industry.
His first job as an announcer was at 3MA Mildura when he was only 17, far away from his family in Melbourne.
“I never had any contact with my family back in Melbourne,” he told 9Honey in 2020.
“The only way to contact them was on the phone and we couldn’t afford them. All I could do was write a letter.”
He got his start in radio in a similar way to many in the industry.
Rogers caught the radio bug as a child — crowding around the wireless as a family to listen to shows, back in the 1940s before TV sets became more affordable.
He followed his passion and got a job as a panel operator at local station 3XY when he was just 14 years old.
“They hosted a children’s radio session, conducted by Max Reddy and Stella Lamond,” he said.
It was while working at 3XY that Rogers was asked to voice a character on a radio show. Excited, he raced home to listen to it with his family.
“We were listening at the family dinner table and my sister who, is eight years older than me, laughed like mad when she heard my voice which hadn’t broken yet. She said, ‘You’ll never be an announcer if you have a voice like that.'”
“I have a funny feeling that was the motivator, to show her.”
Rogers began voice lessons and landed a dream role as a radio announcer in Mildura.
Rogers had plenty of brushes with huge US stars during his long career.
He met Doris Day while she was filming the movie Pillow Talk in 1959, which he says was one of his “favourites”.
He said he also met singer Michael Bublé “before he was famous”.
