James A. McGaw

1962 - 2024

BORN

1962

DIED

2024

About

Oregon High School

James McGaw Obituary

Name: Celebration of Life for James A. McGaw
Start: 2024-06-29T18:00:00.000Z
End: 2024-06-29T22:00:00.000Z
Location: East Side Club

James (Jim) A. McGaw

June 28, 1962 - May 19, 2024

FITCHBURG - On May 19, 2024, James (Jim) McGaw legendary Madison radio broadcaster died unexpectedly doing what he loved.

Born June 28, 1962, in Madison, Jim was born to Kenneth and Genevieve McGaw. Jim was the tenth of 12 children growing up in Fitchburg. He was a 1980 graduate of Oregon High School and later Gateway Technical College where he majored in broadcasting.

Jim's voice was heard in Madison for about 40 years. He started his career on WISM in Madison. After that he could be heard on Magic 98. Most recently he was the host of McGaw in the Morning on WOLX 94.9. He was also currently a Master Control Operator for WKOW 27.

Jim was always light hearted, bright, quick witted and kind. His infectious laugh, his sense of humor, smile and awesome personality will be greatly missed by all. Jim was truly the guy next door who was everyone's friend. He loved to be out in the public, meet listeners, and treasured you all.

Jim is survived by his sister, Jean(Randy)Larsen; brothers: Edward, David (Karen), Sam, Kenneth (Linda), John, William (Cathy), Dennis; and numerous nieces and nephews. He was proceeded in death by his parents; grandparents; sisters: Jane LaValley, JoAnn; and brother, Mark.

A celebration of life will be held for family and friends on June 29, 2024, from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at the East Side Club, 3735 Monona Drive, Madison, with music in the lower level beginning at 2:00 p.m.

Online condolences may be made at Compassioncremation.com.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Madison.com on Jun. 16, 2024.

Memories and Condolences
for James McGaw

5 Entries

Bette Walstra

July 29, 2024

I only knew him being on the radio. Loved his voice & his laugh!! I listened to 94.9 radio station alot. He had a great radio voice! He was just a great guy on the radio! I couldn't believe it when I heard it on TV that he died. I thought who could possibly take his place on the radio that would be as good as he was?? I still really miss hearing his voice! I'll never forget him. I turn the radio on & expect to hear his voice even tho I know he's gone. It's just so sad!! May he rest in peace! Hugs & prayers go out to his siblings. You's have my deepest sympathy. Just a listener.

Mark Stuart

June 30, 2024

Here's my eulogy from yesterday's Celebration of Life. God rest thee, merry gentleman!

Jim and I first met in radio college. Despite him being older than me, I was in my second year while he in the first. I had a radio production task the first year I didn't want to do anymore, so I thought I could pawn it off on a first year student. The first time I saw Jim I thought, "Why, there's a vulnerable looking fellow!" I explained it and he was all enthused like I was giving him something really good! So technically, it was ME that gave him his first radio "job"!

I didn't have a car and Jim offered to drive me to school in his little blue Vega. Almost every morning he'd offer me a Ding Dong. He always seemed to have a box in his car.

I soon found we had a lot in common. I thought I liked radio but compared to him I didn't even know what radio was! In a few years I discovered that he knew every radio tower in southern Wisconsin. We both enjoyed tuning the dial late at night to see from how far away we could hear a station. He continued this his entire life, but I did not. Eventually, I gave him my AM antenna. In the past year he thanked me for it 3 times...what´s fascinating about that is I gave this to him around 25 YEARS AGO! I know he was using it the entire time.

The first summer out of college I sent him a birthday card. He was impressed because he didn´t think anyone from college would stay in touch. He sent me one later for mine and we started the old way of texting - by letters.
That first November I came to Madison for my first concert of several with him. I saw more with him than with anyone.

Our friendship grew even more when I came to Madison a few times the following year to look for a job and stayed at his house. I'll never forget the time we were sitting on his Mom's lawn all depressed and worried we'd never get jobs in our careers. It wasn't long after this he got his first radio job at WISM. While I've had my share of success in television, it's nothing compared to the household name status of Jim McGaw.

With all his success, I was always so humbled when he would be all excited and impressed when HE would hear MY voice on tv! Really? I'm a very behind the scenes guy who has had only a few appearances on random TV commercials and did very little on air voice work. He got recognized in public just by his voice! After I started working in Milwaukee, he acted even more impressed and had called me "Big Timer" ever since.

Jim stuck with me his entire adult life. He was not only with me during the good times but in the bad.

I was his original mobile DJ partner which we did throughout the '90s. So many stories I could tell about that, college, hitting shopping carts with his car, concerts, career plans, countless record shopping adventures, Pocahontas, constant humor and laughter with more inside jokes I can probably remember...these are only a few highlights of our 42-year friendship!

I feel like I've been widowed.

I know everyone has trauma in their lives in one form or another. After Jim lost his sister he told me something awhile later I'll never forget when he said "you don't get over it, you get used to it."

James-I've said more than once you'll be late for your own funeral, so I'm not sure if you're hearing this, but thank you for everything. Most of all your loyal, consistent, life long friendship. It´s still very difficult to believe you´re gone.

Hopefully, I´ll eventually get used to it.

Kathryn Vaughn

June 29, 2024

Jimmy was one in a million! He was the most fun to work with, he would always be there to lend a hand if you needed some help, he had a giant heart and he was one of the funniest people I´ve ever met. He was a total delight to work with for the many years he followed me on the air. There is a special bond between air personalities when they handover the Air chair to each other. I am pleased and proud to have been considered one of his friends. Maybe someday I´ll be as good as he was on the air! KV

Randy krueger

June 16, 2024

Yes my name is Randy I know Jim for many years I met him when he was doing overnight shift on magic 98 and I call and say hi get a request of a song and he just happened to ask me if I ever did with him I said no but he said would you be interested in help me out sometime I said sure and I remember the first party I did with him was down at the avenue bar on East Wash don't remember what kind of party it was it was way back I'm going to miss my buddy I love them like a brother we are very dear friends we worked a lot on weddings Christmas party is picnics and all kinds of other stuff when we would do our parties he would always call me and send me text messages for music to download for the party and we always went to the parties that we did we always set up early to make sure the equipment was working good and get things organized before the party started that was always our policy I know he loved his jobs radio stations TV stations he was loved by all and he'll be loved by many people at the radio station and TV stations and all the people that listen to him I know he enjoyed all his music he like going for walks he loved motorcycles he loved going to Perkins and during the summer he always liked going up to Little America with myself and my friend Gary he loved going up in the gold cards the water stuff we always start at Subway on the way up before we went there and we could talk about anything my friend Gary myself Randy and Jim we joked around but we could always carry good conversations and I feel so sorry for his family he was loved by many people and loved by many listeners he had a great laugh it's just so hard to believe that he's gone I know he's got a birthday coming up this month June 28th he would have been 62 that's too young but I definitely will miss him it just seems strange not getting text messages from him it feels weird we always had nicknames I would call him Jim the man and he would call me Big k and to his family I'm so sorry for your loss

RANDY KRUEGER

June 16, 2024

Yes my name is Randy I know Jim for a very long time I got to know him through the radio station when he was doing the overnight shift and we call in and make requests and we just continue talking he was a very dear friend I love them very much I'm so sad that he's gone he asked me one time if I knew how to DJ I said I would never had any experience either would you like to help the first party I did with him was down at the avenue bar on East Wash and then we did so many weddings picnics Christmas parties we did charity events we did a lot of things together I know he enjoyed going for walks he loved his motorcycles he definitely loved his music like I do and I know he had a lot of people that love them at the radio at the TV stations also I'm definitely going to miss him I know my friend Gary was very shocked too that he passed away I'm sure a lot of people are very sad he was a good man he had a great laugh he cared about people he was always willing to help all people he worked very hard we didn't talk a lot on the phone but we always text when we were DJing and he would give me requests to download music cuz I had some extra time to do that so when we do our parties we be ready and the old days we had to carry in all kinds of CDs and cases of music and then technology change we just used our phones we hooked up the cords to his DJ board and our phones and with all the new music apps and made things a lot easier for us saved on our backs lived in those heavy cases I enjoyed working with him like I said we did a lot of parties and it was lots of fun I know he like going for walks he loved his motorcycles I know he loved going to Perkins and we always celebrated the holidays to honor our parents with my parents and his parents and my friend Gary's parents we always went out for the holidays to honor them it's going to be very hard for me like I said we didn't talk a lot but we text we had nicknames I would call him Jim the man and he would call me the Big k I'm going to miss him and so sorry to hear what happened I know his family is going to miss him also they loved him very much when you lose people in life it's hard to get over even though my parents been gone for a long time is still rings back memories like my buddy Jim I think of a good time we text each other we did the parties we went out to eat once in awhile he was very well loved by everybody TV stations his family and the radio stations I'm going to miss him so much you're a dear friend

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