Eagle Country 99.3's Bob Shannon Dies

Radio personality Bob Shannon died on New Year's Day. He was a major part of Eagle Country 99.3 almost from the start of the station as WSCH in the 1970s.

Bob Shannon enjoyed a 44-year career in local radio, mostly at Eagle Country 99.3. He died on Tuesday, January 1 in Hogan Township, Dearborn County, Indiana. File photo.

(Aurora, Ind.) – Eagle Country 99.3 WSCH radio personality Bob Shannon was laughing anytime he turned his microphone on.

It was his way of communicating a smile to faithful listeners who followed him during more than four decades in local radio.

Bob died on New Year’s Day at his home in Dearborn County’s Hogan Township following a battle against lung cancer, says his partner Judy Ostendorf. He had turned 70 less than two weeks earlier.

“We lost a much-loved family member,” says Eagle Country 99.3 general manager Melissa Murphy. “Bob will be missed every day. He always brought a smile to our faces when he walked in the door. Bob was as good as they come. Our hearts go out to Judy and his family.”   

What are your favorite memories of longtime Eagle Country 99.3 personality Bob Shannon? Share in the comments below this story.

Bob, whose legal name was Robert Martin, was born and raised in Bellevue, Kentucky. As a young man, he was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army in 1969 and 1970. He earned a combat infantryman badge for his service.

A few years after returning from Vietnam, Bob entered broadcasting school. He was hired in 1974 at John Schuler’s fledgling radio station, WSCH, in Aurora, Indiana.

“He came in for an interview and sounded great,” recalls Schuler, who employed Bob for 20 years. “I thought ‘I need to hire this guy.’”

Bob left WSCH to work for some bigger stations in Cincinnati for a couple years, but would later return to WSCH in the late 1970s. Over his career, he had been assigned to almost every one of the station’s air shifts, sold advertising, and led the station’s news department.

“He always came across calm and collected. No matter how crazy things were. That’s the image he gave the listener,” Schuler recalls.

And he was dependable. During the historic blizzard of 1977, Bob traveled over an hour through intense snow to make it to the radio station studio in rural Ohio County. His commitment to radio and southeastern Indiana helped him stick with the radio station through two ownership changes in the 2000s.

Bob Shannon was an honorary torchbearer for the Indiana Bicentennial Torch Relay in Dearborn County in 2016. File photo.

It was radio which brought Bob and Judy together in 2002. At the time, Judy was the director of Main Street Aurora and he went to interview her for a news story about the city receiving a grant for creation of the Dearborn Trail.

“He was good at radio. He connected with people very well. That was a big part of who he was,” Judy shares.

Prior to his final departure from radio last October, Bob was the midday host on Eagle Country 99.3. Always modest, he refused to allow the station to make a big deal of his send-off.

But being on the local radio for years, Bob had already become an inextricable part of the fabric of southeastern Indiana. In 2016, he was chosen to be an honorary torchbearer during the State of Indiana’s bicentennial torch relay through Dearborn County. The Southeastern Indiana Musicians Hall of Fame inducted him as an honorary member in 2005.

Aside from radio and Judy, Bob’s other loves were his pets. The couple had two dogs and three cats which they let roam around their southern Dearborn County home.

There will be no public memorial service for Bob Shannon, but fans and friends can make a memorial donation in his name to PAWS of Dearborn County or the Dearborn County Historical Society.

Bob is survived by a brother, Dennis, and two sisters, Cheryl and Carolyn.

Bob Shannon in the Eagle Country 99.3 studio with his relatives. File photo.