A legendary Cincinnati voice has gone silent.
Popular local radio personality Jim Scott, who retired as 700 WLW-AM morning radio host in 2015, died Friday of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 81.
Scott, of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, was a familiar voice on Cincinnati’s airwaves for 46 years as morning host for WLW, WSAI-AM and others.
He served as the honorary grand marshal of the 2024 Reds Opening Day Parade, a favorite event of his. He had marched in the parade for the past 50 years on what he called his “favorite day of the year.”
In a Facebook post Saturday morning, Scott's wife, Donna, said the formerradio host"crossed over and is in the loving, welcoming embrace of his mom and dad, mine, his sister and so many friends."
Scott announced on Facebook in August 2023 that he had been diagnosed with ALS, also known as “Lou Gehrig’s disease.” He said he had noticed a weakness in his left arm, hand and leg, the same areas that were affected when he contracted polio in 1954 when he was 12 years old, living in Binghamton, New York.
As a child, he had spent six months in a rehabilitation hospital in upstate New York when he heard on the radio news that Jonas Salk had created a polio vaccine.
“ALS is similar to polio in that both are motor-neuron diseases,” Scott wrote when he announced his diagnosis. “The big difference is that not everyone who contracted polio died from it.
“ALS is a fatal disease.
“Science found a way to prevent polio, so wouldn’t it be wonderful if doctors and scientists could find a way to defeat ALS?”
Scott continued to use his voice – and his popularity – to raise money toward that goal. When he came to Cincinnati as a young disc jockey in 1968, he started a decades-long stretch of leading the annual March of Dimes walk. Last September [2023], he led the Walk to Defeat ALS.
Jim Scott was Cincinnati’s morning voice for 46 years
The popular radio personality began his broadcasting career in 1960 as a high school senior in Binghamton.
Scott made his debut on Cincinnati’s airwaves March 23, 1968, on WSAI-AM 1360, hosting mornings from 6-9 a.m. In 1972, he was lured to New York’s WNBC radio, NBC’s flagship station, but returned to WSAI after a year. He moved over to WLW in 1984, with brief stops at WYYS-FM (aka WLLT-FM) and WWNK-FM.
In 2002, Scott was given the prestigious Marconi Award for large market radio personality of the year.
Scott’s last day on the air was April 3, 2015.
It wasn’t widely known that Jim Scott was not his real name – it’s James Boland – but Scott bristled at the idea that it was a fake name.
“I’ve been Jim Scott since 1960, for my entire broadcasting career,” he told The Enquirer in 2014. “I don’t use my real name, it’s meaningless. I’m Jim Scott. There’s nothing fake about it.”
Scott used his radio show to publicize community events and was most often spotted all over Greater Cincinnati as a volunteer himself, ringing the bell for the Salvation Army’s red kettle campaign or emceeing United Way fundraisers.
In 1996 and 2002 he was chosen to be a torch-bearer of the Olympic flame through the region on its way to the Olympic games.
'Just a good man'
Mo Egger, an ESPN 1530 radio host, worked with Scott at WLW from the late '90s to the early 2010s.
Scott was "just a good man," Egger said. "People would ask me all the time 'Is he really that nice?' And I would say, 'Yeah. He really is,'" Egger said with a laugh.
When he was in his twenties, Egger was the producer for Scott's morning show. He described Scott as a mentor, friend, advocate and sounding board. Scott took a genuine interest in Egger's career, working to help Egger improve and advocating for him.
"That doesn't happen," Egger said. "That doesn't happen, I'm sure, in most businesses but that doesn't happen in our business."
Scott's genuine interest in people made him a great host, Egger said. "He had a way of connecting with people that's unlike anything I've ever seen," the ESPN 1530 host added. He was "a friendly voice in the morning."
Scott is survived by his wife, Donna Hartman; his sons, Scott Boland, Jim Boland and Casey Boland.
