Wayne K. Brown always knew he wanted to work in radio. While his words were not generally spoken over the air, he was a respected voice in broadcast radio and would formulate plans that promoted the success of the industry.
A native of Washington, D.C., Brown attended Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and was an active leader on campus. Radio personality Roosevelt “Rick” Wright Jr., the first African-American professor on the Newhouse staff, said Brown was his first student. He said on his first day of class he saw a young man standing in the doorway wearing a three-piece suit, bow tie and the biggest smile. “Wayne looked like he was already the president of the class.” He graduated in 1978.
Brown, of Mableton, died Oct. 6 from complications of liver cancer. He was 55. A funeral will be held 11 a.m. Monday, Oct. 15 at Ebenezer AME Church in Fort Washington, Md. Carl M. Williams Funeral Directors of Atlanta and W.H. Bacon Funeral Home in Washington, D.C. are in charge of arrangements.
His broadcast career began in New York in the 1980s. Wright recalled a conversation about Brown’s decision to apply for a security guard position at CBS headquarters in New York. “He had a strategy and it worked,” he said. Brown got the job and later applied for the company’s management training program and by 1990, had worked his way up to general sales manager.
He met his future wife, Neysa Dillon Brown, at a tennis party on Martha’s Vineyard in 1985. “He called his mom on the day he met me and told her that I would be his wife and the mother of his children,” Neysa Brown said. She was drawn to his love of life, his energy and his magnificent smile and they were married three years later.
“He was an incredible, creative dreamer and helped others fulfill their dreams as well,” Neysa Brown said.
Brown’s radio career took him to Charlotte, N.C., and later Atlanta, where he joined Radio One as vice president and regional manager of its Atlanta, Charlotte and Raleigh/Durham properties, in addition to general manager of Radio One’s stations in Atlanta. He also served as founder, president and CEO of WKB Enterprises, Inc. and station manager/director of sales for Streetz 94.5 FM.
Friend and fellow Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. member Sherman Kizart, of Chicago, worked closely with Brown in the radio industry, calling his friend a very grounded individual. “The radio industry is one that egos on all facets of the industry run rampant, but that wasn’t Wayne. He rolled up his sleeves and went about the business of making things happen,” he said.
The two men once served as co-chairs of the Power of Urban Radio Forum, which promotes the African-American consumer in radio. Kizart said Brown sought to collaborate, rather than compete, with other urban radio executives in Atlanta to help transform how the entire radio industry looks at urban radio.
In addition to his wife, Brown is survived by sons Dylan J. Brown and Drew P. Brown of Mableton; mother, Clara M. Brown of Temple Hills, Md.; and brother, Roderick J. Brown of Temple Hills, Md.
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