Paul Sanchez did the graveyard show at KZZY. He was on the nicest guys I ever met and he was a very talented on-air personality as well.
The invite I have shown here was to the grand opening of Baby Dolls which a lot of the staff attended, including Paul, John Lodge, and myself.
I arrived about 5 PM; ate some horsd'oevres, but I didn't have anything to drink since I had to get back to the station to do the night shift. Not sure what happened at Baby Dolls after I left, but around a 11:30 PM or so I got a call on the listener line that I will never forget.
A lady's voice was on the other end and she claimed to be Paul Sanchez's mother. She stated "my son won't be able to come to work tonight because he died in a car accident tonight." All that ran through my head at that moment was "WTF" and this must be a hoax. However, I realized I could not just blow this listener off, because there is a chance that she is telling the truth. So, I explained to her that I needed to have my boss (John Lodge) call her to verify what she had told me. She understood, gave me her phone number, and I told her how very sorry for her I was, not only for the loss of her son, but also that I was having to make her wait for a call from John to tell him the news.
About fifteen minutes later, John called me on the phone and told me that he was able to confirm she was Paul's mother and what she was saying was true after having spoken to the police. John told me not to make any mention of it on the air and got a substitute to cover Paul's shift. He then came to the studio at the end of my shift to take me out to where the accident had happened. There wasn't much to see by the time we got there - thank goodness. there was a little debris left behind, but fortunately most of what I asummed were gory remains had been removed from the scene. I think I'm remembering this correctly, the fact that John went to the police impound yard and viewed Paul's smashed up car.
The newspaper story I have posted her explains most of the gory details of the the event that happened that night.
Baby Dolls invite for the Z100 staff.
That's me in the Z100 buzzard suit with Paul Sanchez standing next to me.
