Chris Edwards
Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame
Class of 2018
Chris Edwards was elected to the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018 as the recipient of the Don Sherwood Award in the Legends category.
Born Edward Christian Reinholtz in Mount Vernon, N.Y., he became a licensed ham radio operator as a teenager, and made his debut as a disc jockey as an undergrad at the University of Florida’s campus radio station, WRUF, in the late 1950s.
It was there that he adopted the “Chris Edwards” moniker, under which he later achieved his greatest fame in commercial radio, first in Florida at WHEW in West Palm Beach and WFUN in Miami, and later at KYA in San Francisco in the mid-1960s.
His BARHOF citation:
The People’s Choice to be honored with induction into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame’s Class of 2018 is Chris Edwards, who arrived fifty years ago in San Francisco for a job that he considered his “golden opportunity” – which it truly was for the self-proclaimed “Big Fat Chrissy Edwards” and his legion of fans (each one of them his “Kemosabe”) on 1260/KYA.
With his ebullient personality, Chris moved effortlessly into sales and became one of the top account representatives in the business, repping KYA, K101, KSFO, KFRC (Magic 61), KKSF, KABL, KTRB and KGO before his retirement in 2011.
Meanwhile, he was always only a heartbeat away from his first love, the microphone, whether hosting the Saturday night “Chris Edwards Time Machine” on K101 and KSFO/KYA-FM or working the amateur airwaves around the world as W6OSV.
Chris passed away in January 2014.
ABOVE: A video tribute to Big Fat Chrissy Edwards prepared for his induction into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame.
ABOVE: (left to right) Monkee-ing around with Michael Nesmith, Chris Edwards,
Johnny Holliday, Peter Tork, Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz at a concert promoted by KYA
Chris Edwards
Chris Edwards on 1260 KYA (August 11, 1968):
The Chris Edwards K-101 Solid Gold Time Machine (August 17, 1986):
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