Don McGee Named Host of MIXED BAG

New York's Rock and Roots Radio station WFUV (90.7 FM/wfuv.org) has announced that Don McGee will be the permanent host of the award-winning program Mixed Bag, which airs every Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. Radio icon Pete Fornatale originated the program nearly 30 years ago and hosted it until his death in April of this year. McGee has been the primary guest host for Mixed Bag, as well as a fill-in host for WFUV's weekday morning show.

"It is gratifying, on many levels, to see Don continue as host of Mixed Bag," said WFUV's general manager Chuck Singleton. "As so many listeners have pointed out, he's the obvious choice. As Pete Fornatale's former producer and frequent substitute, Don has been primed for this role. Pete's desire to see Don succeed him was always clear. I know Don will honor Pete's great legacy and take the show in his own unique directions."

Soon after its debut as a Sunday morning program on WNEW-FM in December, 1982, Mixed Bag became the launching pad for a new generation of singer-songwriters, including Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, and Christine Lavin. Known for his penetrating interviews with artists such as Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Leonard Cohen, Fornatale received the Armstrong Award for Excellence in Musical Programming in 1983 and an AFTRA Media and Entertainment Excellence Award in Broadcasting earlier this year. In January, 2000, Fornatale brought Mixed Bag to WFUV (where he worked as a Fordham University undergraduate in the 1960s) in the Saturday 4 to 8 p.m. time slot.

"I know how important Mixed Bag is to so many people," said McGee. "I'm grateful to WFUV for this opportunity, and I thank the show's many loyal listeners who've wished me well. Of course, I'll always be grateful to Pete Fornatale, to whom I owe so much."

Don McGee began his association with Pete Fornatale in 1987 as a producer of Saturday Morning Sixties, another program hosted by Fornatale at WNEW-FM, and was later an associate producer of Mixed Bag. A graduate of the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, he is the president of McGee Productions, a media Production Company. He lives in New Jersey with his wife Kathy, the Collections Registrar for the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He has two daughters: Kate, a 2011 Fordham graduate (and an award-winning member of WFUV's news department) who is a news anchor/reporter at KUNR, the NPR affiliate radio station in Reno, Nevada; and Annie, a Fordham junior majoring in political science.