NPR Broadcaster Carl Kasell Dies In Potomac

POTOMAC, MD — Longtime NPR newscaster Carl Kasell died on Tuesday due to complications from Alzheimer's disease at an assisted living center in Potomac, Maryland. He was 84.

Kasell was the famed voice of NPR News for three decades. He was known for his roles on Morning Edition and Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

"We just got the heartbreaking news that our dear friend and Score Keeper Emeritus Carl Kasell has passed away," the waitwait Twitter account posted Tuesday afternoon. "Carl was warm, funny, caring, and put up with our nonsense with a knowing smile and a wink. In a word, he was a gentleman."

Wait Wait host Peter Sagal echoed those sentiments on his own Twitter account.

"I am extremely sad to tell you all that my dear friend and colleague for 16 years, Carl Kasell has passed away at the age of 84, from complications of Alzheimer's," Sagal tweeted. "He was, and remains, the heart and soul of our show."

Kasell kicked off his radio career at only 16 when he became the DJ on a late-night music show on a local station in Goldsboro, North Carolina, NPR says.

Kasell helped launch the WUNC station as a student at University of North Carolina and joined NPR as a part-time employee in 1975 after a brief stint in the military.

Kasell became "one of the network's most recognized voices" when he helped launch NPR's one-hour news program Morning Edition in 1979.

"Seven newscasts, every morning ... nobody in the business does that," Bob Edwards, Morning Edition's former host, said of Kasell. "That is incredible."

In 1998, Kasell switched gears from serious to silly. He became the official judge and scorekeeper of the weekly news quiz show of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

"No matter what we asked him to do — silly voices, or weird stunts; we had him jump out of a cake once to make his entrance onstage — he did it [with] such joy and such dignity," host Peter Sagal said.

Kasell worked on the news quiz show until he retired in 2014. His final show was recorded in May 2014.

In Kasell's memoir, “Wait Wait . . . I’m Not Done Yet!” he estimated that he put his voice on more than 2,000 answering machines, The Washington Post reported.

He received many prestigious awards throughout his career, like the Development Exchange Inc's President's Award for his lifetime contributions to public radio in 2001. He shared in the George Foster Peabody Institution Award given to Morning Edition in 1999 and was honored with the Leo C. Lee Friend of Public Radio News Award in 1996.

UNC at Chapel Hill chose Kasell as an inductee to the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 2004.

You can listen to his final episode below.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)