On The Air: Monday - Friday 6am-9am
“Morning Dave” Onsted moved to Sebring as a “working retiree” after a radio career spanning over 50 years. He started in radio by accident in his hometown of Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 1969 when volunteers reading dedications for a Saturday afternoon “request show” didn’t show up and he happened to be hanging around playing with the electronics in the back room. He got a bad case of “the show must go on,” read the dedications and got a job offer. He worked his way
through the University of Wisconsin at heritage Top 40 station WISM in Madison, and moved from there through the Carolinas, Washington DC, and Baltimore before moving into sales and management in the early ‘80s.
Dave says he played just about every kind of music there is and met just about every Pop, Rock, and Country artist whoever begged to have their records played between 1969 and 1983. He bought a share of ownership and managed a small group of radio stations in Wisconsin and Colorado beginning in 1991, and moved to Sebring in 2004 after a stint as General Manager of the nation’s largest-coverage radio signal, WNAX, the legendary South Dakota farm radio blowtorch that gave Lawrence Welk his launch to fame in the 1920’s and 1930’s. He says it was there that he got hooked on golf when he bought a home off the first tee of the local Country Club; the job included a membership, and “I hated to see the company’s money go to waste.”
Dave says the only thing that’ll ever get him to think about leaving Sebring is if he ever sees snow again – then all bets are off. He’s addicted to golf, nicotine gum and ham radio, thinks anyone who doesn’t appreciate a good single-malt scotch should go back to school, and says arguing with Phillip Statler on the financial report each morning is the first time since he got out of school that he’s actually used his economics major from college.
Dave was widowed in 2020 after 37 years married to his bride, Gladys. He has two lovely stepdaughters, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. He lives in Sebring with his best buddy Anney, also known as “Meatloaf The Wonder Cat,” and a varying collection of feral cats he feeds every morning when he wakes up at 3:30am.