Click the link above to listen to a 2005 interview featuring Michael and George Scheibner.
Michael Titterton, who served as founding GM of WHQR from 1983 to 1997 died Oct. 4 at his home in Honolulu. He was 76.
Titterton was known at the station and community as passionate about public radio, theater, and art. He started his long career in public radio when public radio was just taking shape in the 70’s. He was working at one of the first public radio stations, WDET in Detroit, MI, where he reported on the decline of Detroit’s automobile industry for the newly formed NPR. While producing for WFSU in Tallahassee, he answered an ad posted by Friends of Public Radio, who sought someone to help them start a public radio station from scratch. Titterton was hired in 1983 and began the task of fundraising and working with volunteers, eventually putting WHQR on the air on from the small studio in a former bar on Greenfield Street on the morning of April 22, 1984. Speaking of those early days, Titterton said “A little madness goes a long way…We had no idea that we could do it, but we absolutely no comprehension that we wouldn’t be able to.”
When he left WHQR, he eventually went on to become president and GM of Hawaii Public Radio in 1999, where he served until 2016. Titterton then served as president of the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra.
Born and raised in London, Titterton earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Windsor in Canada. He later earned a master’s degree in rhetoric from Wayne State University in Detroit.
He was also an accomplished actor, appearing in numerous productions at Thalian Hall, one of which was A Christmas Carol with Tony Rivenbark, both of whom are immortalized in a photo in Thalian Hall’s lobby. While in Hawaii, he had a guest role as the bartender in an episode from Season Three of Lost.
Titterton is survived by his wife Madeleine McKay of Honolulu and his brother Ian Titterton of Portland, Ore.