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, Fla., 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, N.J., 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.
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.