Best-known for a 25-year run as morning host on KOIT, “Tommy” Saunders’ Bay Area career saw him hold down key on-air positions in formats ranging from MOR to Top 40 to light rock.
Saunders’ first Bay Area gig was in 1962 at KYA. He was part of a group imported from Buffalo, NY when longtime WKBW owner Clinton Churchill purchased KYA (others included BARHOF inductees Russ “The Moose” Syracuse and Larry Brownell).
Saunders would later be hired by KGO as a staff announcer, then became the first live voice on its automated FM sister station, KSFX, lasting through a string of format changes before moving to KSFO in 1978.
His run at KOIT began in 1980 and lasted until his retirement in 2005.