Patinkin: On the airwaves or off, Ron St. Pierre was always a team player. It made RI better
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It's hard to believe Ron St. Pierre is suddenly gone too young – a great guy and wide-ranging force in Rhode Island radio.
Talk show hosts came and went over the last 40 years, but Ron St. Pierre remained in the mix, a staple of continuity both on and off the air, particularly on two AM-radio powerhouses – WPRO and WJHH, now called NewsRadio 920.
Ron left us suddenly on Monday night after collapsing at his East Greenwich home. He was 69, a media personality who was often out front, but without ego.
That’s one reason he left such a mark.
He spent many stints as a radio host – the person in the arena – but instead of holding on for the accolades, he cycled in and out to also serve as a programming guy and on-air sidekick.
For a while, that was Ron’s public identity, as the partner to a top talk show host you might have heard of named Buddy Cianci.
That’s how I met Ron, when I was a guest a few times on Buddy’s show on WHJJ, and later on WPRO.
During Cianci’s first run on WHJJ in the 1980s, I didn’t realize Ron was also the program director who'd recruited the newly ex-mayor.
During on-air breaks, Cianci, who was at times an unguided missile, would pace the studio, then slide back into the host’s chair seconds before resuming live. Ron, meanwhile, was the steady force, keeping the show running smoothly, chiming in with Cianci to keep the back-and-forth going. He was happy to be the on-air “second” because he knew that was part of making the show succeed.
Nor were his roles easy. The truth is, live radio is a stressful medium, but Ron was always collected, his baritone smooth, his sentences complete. He was meant for the business.
After Cianci ended up a guest of the feds, Ron again became a talk show host, but he selflessly kept a long view. Ron would visit Buddy in prison, mostly as a friend but also to cultivate the mayor for a possible return.
Which happened. Because of Ron, Cianci came back as a talk host in 2007, this time on WPRO, and the show drew top ratings.
In 2013, Ron became a host for seven years at WHJJ-920, succeeding Helen Glover, and I also remember him doing two-minute scripted commentaries. Those are hard to bring off on the radio, yet he did them so well that I felt he would stick with it, but, again, he kept playing other roles at the station.
Ultimately, his achievements earned him a place in the state’s Radio & Television Hall of Fame in 2010 as well as the hall in his native Pawtucket in 2017. Ron was a grad of St. Raphael Academy, as well as Rhode Island College.
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I crossed paths with Ron St. Pierre in a few other arenas.
For a while, I was a mediocre player on a few over-50 men’s baseball teams in Rhode Island, at one point with Ron as teammate. He was legit talented – a shortstop, as I recall – and he swung a bat well. He was always a humble guy in the dugout, too. It reflected how he was in his profession – talented enough to have the right to strut, but always low-key.
Once, our baseball opponents had on their roster the former Red Sox star pitcher Oil Can Boyd, who’d settled in East Providence. He ended up playing infield, but Ron and I agreed to leave that out and just tell people we "faced" Oil Can Boyd.
We also were both recruited for a well-known annual event here called “Dancing with the Stars of Mentoring,” where local folks train with real dancers and compete in a fundraiser for Mentor RI, which pairs role models with at-risk kids.
I had to drop out, and it was just as well because Ron was a tough competitor. I went to the final dance-off at Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, always an amusing show, in part because the amateurs sometimes aren’t exactly perfect, but all are good sports.
Ron, however, had skills, and I’m not just saying that because this is a eulogy to him. Both at shortstop and on the dance floor, he was quite an athlete, and I recall him combining those skills that night with a dance move akin to sliding into base on the wood floor, then popping up to his feet as his finish. Guess who won that year? Ron.
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I’m sure most of you knew Ron St. Pierre’s name from his work. That name could have been even bigger had he stayed exclusively in the role of talk show host.
But he preferred selflessly helping his stations and colleagues shine by playing many roles. Which is why he was such an important pillar of an industry – talk radio – that's a big thread in Rhode Island’s fabric.
Truly, we are a better place for having had Ron St. Pierre as one of our own.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Ron St. Pierre remembered for roles on RI talk radio and off air
