In the news of Bill Dahle’s passing, it was strange to read the dates of when he first came to Kauai and when he retired from radio. It didn’t seem possible that there was a beginning or end to his presence on the island. It seemed like he was always there.
It’s hard to point to one particular story that stood out or event that he covered, because he covered everything of significance on the island for decades. From the 1960s through 2002, Dahle was the newsman at KUAI radio. He was an owner of the radio station and also started a cable TV station, though he sold that in the 1990s. He died Jan. 7 at his home at age 69.
He was more than an old-fashioned newsman. He was a classic newsman. He didn’t just rip-and-read from the wires or newspapers in the morning; he went out and covered stories. He’d be there for the community meetings that went well into the night and the County Council hearings that were so tedious it felt like time was standing still. Then, he’d sift through the information, make sense of it all and report it in his beautiful baritone the next morning. Generations of Kauai residents woke up to sweetbread-and-coffee breakfasts and Bill Dahle’s voice coming from the AM radio telling them what was going on.
Even out at dusty groundbreakings or roadside protests, he’d have his big boxy tape recorder hanging from a shoulder strap, a shotgun microphone and 50 questions, and he’d take his time getting answers.
At press conferences, he’d ask about minute details of an issue, not to show off or to play gotcha, but because he understood the subject matter so well — sometimes better than the source on the other side of the microphone. It was always a good idea to sit next to him at long-winded events, because every so often he’d make a wry comment under his breath that would put everything in perfect perspective.
As a young reporter, there was no way to compete with Dahle. He just knew too much, knew too many people, was so solid that nothing got past him. If you had a story that he didn’t have, that meant that it probably didn’t matter.
His radio station existed in an era before Facebook self-promotion, before celebrity opinion became a key ingredient to news coverage, before "tell us what YOU think" was the tag line to every story. Yet he was more connected to his community with salient information and instant feedback than any Twitter user could ever be. Even without Facebook and LinkedIn, in his day he was connected to everybody, every single person, on Kauai and Niihau.
Lee Cataluna can be reached at lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
