Staff photo / Andy Gray Dan Rivers is stepping down as WKBN-AM’s late morning talk show host after more than 20 years in the time slot and more than 40 years at the station. An open house is planned at I Heart Radio’s studios in Boardman for his final show 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday.

BOARDMAN — Along with that first cup of coffee or a hearty breakfast, the routine for many in the Mahoning Valley for decades included listening to Dan Rivers late mornings on WKBN-AM.

After more than 40 years at the station and more than 20 years filling the 9 a.m. to noon weekday slot, Rivers announced earlier this month that he is stepping down from the daily grind of radio work, but his voice and opinions won’t disappear entirely. His last show will be Wednesday.

During an interview in I Heart Radio’s WKBN studio following his Thursday show, Rivers said Cheryl Sturbi, his wife of 35 years, often has asked him how much longer he wanted to keep working but didn’t push him to step away. One of the big factors for the conservative radio voice was the November election, where many of the candidates and issues he championed on air won, from local office holders to the president.

“I thought, you know what? We’re in a good spot right now,” Rivers said. “Maybe we can sit back and I can make comments about this and maybe help people in other ways and help my wife. Maybe we’ll be able to jump in the car and do a day trip, whereas we weren’t able to do that before, because when you’re in radio, you have to do a lot of planning to take time off.”

Rivers, 76, fell in love with radio growing up in Lima and listening to hockey games on the 50,000-watt WOWO-AM in Fort Wayne, Ind.

“My dad gave me a radio, and I would constantly listen, and they’d have to come in and tell me to shut that radio off at night,” he said.

At school he would pretend a pop bottle was a microphone and interview his classmates.

After high school, Rivers joined the Navy and did two tours in Vietnam as a Seabee in the U.S. Naval Construction Forces. One of his fellow Seabees was Mike DeWine’s brother-in-law, and that connection helped Rivers forge a professional relationship with the Ohio governor and gave him better access than he had with past state leaders.

Rivers saved $1,300 from his time in the service, and he spent $1,000 of it to study radio at the Career Academy in Columbus. He got a job at a radio station outside of Columbus before moving to Toledo and then Detroit. He was offered a chance to run a group of radio stations in Waynesboro, Pa., and realized it was a bad fit almost as soon as he started. When he heard about job openings at a new station in Youngstown, WFMJ-AM, Rivers moved to the Mahoning Valley in the mid ’70s.

Up to that point, Rivers worked as a DJ and never really considered talk radio.

“I did not have the depth that I knew I would need because I hadn’t been to college,” he said. “My grammar was poor.”

The G.I. Bill provided more money than he needed to pay for tuition at Youngstown State University, so he started taking classes. Rivers credited one of his professors, Anita Gorman, with making him a better writer, which in turn made him a better speaker.

“I graduated in 1980 and then (program director) Pete Gabriel called me and said, ‘Hey, how would you like to come over to WKBN? I went over there, and that’s kind of when my education began, when I started working for the Williamsons (who owned the station), because they were more advanced than almost anybody.”

Rivers worked more in management than on-air and was the boss of the man he eventually would replace as WKBN’s late morning voice, local radio legend Dan Ryan.

“When I did take over the job after Dan Ryan had passed on (in 2003), I thought I was good at it, but I wasn’t,” Rivers said. “I didn’t realize how schooled he was in the art of radio. So I became a student of radio, and I have tried so many different ways of doing this. I tried it with guests. I tried it with just calls. I tried it with commentary.

“In the end, you could call me a generalist, because I mixed it all together. I grabbed a piece of everything. One way that most people do the radio is that they’ll pick a topic, and they will go in depth with it. They’ll talk it to death. And I choose to pick out a variety of things to comment on and not give too much attention to any one caller.”

That mix was on full display Thursday as Rivers went from fielding calls from listeners about illegal immigration and taxes to providing commentary on political topics to playing an eclectic mix of sound bites — Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz (about an hour before news broke of him withdrawing himself from consideration), a vintage clip of economist Milton Friedman extolling the virtues of a free-market economy, and a few deadpan one-liners from comedian Steven Wright.

Stay on any one topic or spend too much time with any one guest and listeners might switch the station or turn off their radio. Providing a mix keeps listeners engaged and waiting to hear what comes next.

During his time at WKBN, Rivers has been a part of many significant stories, from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the World Trade Center went down, Ron (Verb, WKBN afternoon drive host) and I took a company car and we drove to New York City, and we covered that,” Rivers said. “We did our shows via a phone line from my son’s apartment in New York City for a few days.”

The trials of former Mahoning County Sheriff and U.S. Rep. James A. Traficant Jr. put a spotlight on the Mahoning Valley, and Traficant’s relationship and frequent appearances on WKBN brought attention to the radio station as well.

Then there is the seismic shift politically in the Mahoning Valley, once a Democratic stronghold in a swing state and now a region that voted for Donald Trump in this month’s presidential election and a place where every statewide officeholder is a Republican.

Listeners often give Rivers credit for making that shift possible. He doesn’t agree, at least not entirely. Rivers said the credit goes to those longtime Democratic voters who first asked for a Republican primary ballot in 2016 to vote for Trump.

“I think that you can look back and you can see there was a sea change in the Mahoning Valley, and we were able to continue that,” Rivers said “We didn’t run it, I didn’t cause it, but I think we actually fomented it a little bit by being able to stay with the theme of smaller government and paying attention to the little guy, that the Democrat party had left them.”

He also witnessed major changes in his own industry. In his WKBN studio, the adjacent producer’s booth now sits empty and Rivers handles everything from behind a microphone that is surrounded by three large computer monitors. He works the phones, cues the commercials and handles all of the tasks that were handled by at least two people when he started.

“I think what happened is that the companies that invested heavily into sophisticated computers have decided that they’re going to make this pay off,” Rivers said. “I’d be the first to admit that you lose a little without the human interaction and someone being able to fix something for you on the fly.”

It means doing more prep the night before, having soundbites and material ready depending upon the ebb and flow of the callers on any given day and coming in early to make sure everything is just the way Rivers needs it to be before his show starts. Anyone who thinks Rivers works a three-hour day couldn’t be more wrong.

“It’s one of those evolving things,” he said. “Most of us don’t particularly embrace it, but it’s a reality.”

But that technology also allows for things that Rivers couldn’t imagine when he started, and he plans to embrace those opportunities after his last show.

Rivers wants to explore podcasting, creating a program that listeners can enjoy at their convenience rather than being tuned into their radio at a set time every weekday. He also plans to put those writing skills he developed at YSU to use by doing commentaries he’ll publish on social media.

For his final show on Wednesday, WKBN is planning an open house 9 a.m. to noon where there will be refreshments in the lobby, and listeners and past guests are invited to come and both watch and be a part of the final broadcast.

“I’m going to talk to them on the air, and we’re going to talk and find out a little bit more in depth about them and they can ask about me,” he said. “If all goes well and we’re able to work it out with the organization, I’ll come back and fill in for Ron sometimes or I’ll help them out with commercials any way I can and hopefully still be a part of this great radio station.”