WWL radio talk-show host succumbs to cancer
Times Picayune 09-12-2005


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New Orleans radio talk host David Tyree died early
Monday of prostate cancer. 

Originally diagnosed with the disease in 1996, Tyree
suffered a relapse last fall and later left his job at
news-talk WWL 870 AM to live and seek treatment near
family in Alva, Okla.

“They were very close, watched him, tended to him
daily,” said Jack Savoie, Tyree’s producer at WWL. “I
talked to David at least twice a week. He always put
on a brave face. He was tough to the very end.”

A Vietnam veteran and former TV anchorman in
Lafayette, Tyree had done an earlier stint as WWL talk
host and was working as a reporter at WVUE-Channel 8
and as a talk host at WGSO radio when he was first
diagnosed with cancer. 

He became a crusader for early detection. After
treatment and delivered what he described as a “clean
bill of health” by his doctors, Tyree eventually
returned to the airwaves, first in Baton Rouge in
September 1999 and then, in December 2000, at WWL.

At WWL, Tyree established himself as a
hard-to-categorize talk host. A hawk on the war in
Iraq (or, more precisely, a hawk on the overall war on
terror), Tyree leaned less rightward on many social
issues.

He was a tireless proponent of New Orleans and its
frequently-confounding charms.

"Anybody who knows New Orleans has a love-hate
relationship with New Orleans,” Tyree told the
Times-Picayune on the occasion of his 2000 return to
WWL. “It can drive you crazy, it can be infuriating,
but there's no place like it in the country. It's got
that magic, whatever that magic is."

Former WWL-Channel 4 anchorman Garland Robinette, one of 
several temp hosts to fill in for Tyree during the early 
stages of his relapse, became Tyree’s permanent time-slot 
replacement in May.

At the time, WWL managers said they would hold a job
for Tyree until he recovered, a promise Robinette made
a condition of his own employment at the station.

According to Jay Mitchel, Tyree was glued to
television coverage of Katrina and the storm’s
aftermath, and spoke by phone with several Louisiana
leaders.

Several family members watched Sunday’s New Orleans
Saints victory with Tyree.

“That was the last thing he got to see before he
passed,” Mitchel said. “He was surprised that they
won, but he was happy.”

Diane Newman, WWL program director, said she last
spoke with Tyree as Hurricane Katrina approached the
Louisiana coast.

“All he cared about was that I was OK and that
everybody else here was OK and how sorry he was that
he couldn’t be here (on the air),” said Newman, whose
station was forced from the city by Katrina and has
relocated its base of operations in Baton Rouge. “And
I know these past two weeks, all David was thinking
about was not his cancer and his dying – he was
thinking about us.

“God didn’t create a better human being.”

Tyree's funeral is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at
the Marshall Funeral Home in Alva.

Instead of flowers, Tyree’s family requests a donation
to the American Red Cross relief fund to aid Hurricane
Katrina victims.