Nat Wright, 82, radio broadcaster

Nat Wright, 82, of Glenside, a radio broadcaster who hosted WIP's Dawn Patrol for 17 years, died of a stroke at home on Thanksgiving.

Mr. Wright joined the station in 1961 as a "swing man," doing news, spinning records, and filling in for popular personalities Joe McCauley, Ken Garland,  and Tom Lamaine. The AM station (610) had 24-hour programming, said his wife, Sue Young Wright, who added, "I had a packed lunch ready for him whenever he got a call."

In 1967, Mr. Wright was tapped to host Dawn Patrol, which aired from midnight to 6 a.m. He was free to play his own favorites and once helped launch a hit record, his wife said.

In the 1970s, the music promoter and publisher Kal Rudman heard Judy Collins' recording of Stephen Sondheim's "Send in the Clowns" on Dawn Patrol. Impressed, he asked Mr. Wright to play the song frequently, and lobbied Collins' record company to issue the song as a single. In 1975, "Send in the Clowns" won a Grammy as song of the year. Collins had lunch with Mr. Wright and Rudman in Philadelphia to thank them. "Nat was such a sweet man, he was thrilled," Rudman said.

In 1984, when WIP switched to all-night talk radio, Mr. Wright played his last tune on the Dawn Patrol.

He told a Philadelphia Daily News reporter that he was "not bitter" about losing the show. "But I would like to have had a crack at doing the talk show," he said.

For a brief time, Mr. Wright did host a radio show, in Trenton. He also made voice-overs, filled in for TV announcers, and for several years taught at the former American Academy of Broadcasting in Philadelphia.

For 16 years, until 2004, Mr. Wright was a volunteer tour guide at Christ Church.

"The experience, part of nearly a lifetime of oral presentation and people involvement, was unsurpassed in personal fulfillment," he wrote in a memoir.

Mr. Wright was longtime recording secretary for the Philadelphia local of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and contributed to AFTRA publications. In 1996, he received AFTRA's "Silver Card" award. He was a member of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia.

A native of Maryland, Mr. Wright, whose given name was Nathaniel Van Wert Wright IV, served in the Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II. After the bombing of Nagasaki, he was assigned to patrol the nearby Japanese countryside. "The local villagers were terrified of Marines, but trusted me because at 5'5" I did not appear to be a threat," he wrote in his memoir.

After his discharge, Mr. Wright attended Washington College in Chestertown, Md., and American University in Washington before becoming an editorial researcher at the Washington Evening Star.

In 1951, he landed a job at a radio station in Hagerstown, Md. He did all the announcing, sold ads, and even cleaned the bathroom, his wife said. He moved on to stations in Dover, Del., and Reading, where he met his future wife. He then worked for stations in Alexandria, Va., and Washington before joining WIP.

The Wrights' daughter Ruth was diagnosed as autistic, and in his memoir Mr. Wright wrote of his advocacy for the mentally disabled. "My wife and I have been involved with appropriate issues as members of state and local units of the Association for Retarded Citizens and family groups at residential and workshop facilities," he wrote.

Mr Wright enjoyed listening to his collection of jazz music and spending time with his family, his wife said,   including her nephew, Mark Young, who was like a surrogate son, she said.

In addition to his wife of 55 years and his daughter, Mr. Wright is survived by daughters Beth Williams and Amy Botone; two sisters; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 654 N. Easton Rd., Glenside. Burial will be in the churchyard. Mr. Wright was a lay reader at the church, where he was frequently invited to preach.