RIP to Dick Olson, who was Don Nelson's sidekick and much more

The funeral service for Dick Olson, long a mainstay of KJNP radio and television, will be Friday at 11 a.m. at True North Church, followed Saturday by a memorial potlatch at the David Salmon Tribal Hall.

I always enjoyed talking to Dick when our paths crossed in Fairbanks, as they often did for decades. He attended many public events representing the Gospel Station at the Top of the Nation and always did so with a friendly smile and a welcoming presence.

In thinking about Dick, I remember that one of his special talents was his steady manner in front of the TV camera or the microphone.

For many years Dick was a co-host with KJNP founder Don Nelson of “Closing Comments,” a program that had it origins when KJNP ventured into television.

The radio station went on the air Oct. 11, 1967. The TV version came along in 1981. It was a rough start.

“Closing Comments” began as a way for the all-volunteer staff to go on the air and tell viewers what went wrong at the station that day. There was always something to talk about, Nelson and Olson told me for a column I wrote about 35 years ago.

Before long, Don and Dick started asking the volunteers how they ended up in North Pole. It was a short step to go from that to inviting guests to talk about local events, doing so on a TV stage that looked like a living room.

Don and Dick had different styles, but they were true to themselves.

“On the two occasions when I have appeared on the show, I was amazed that Dick Olson arrived on the set about 30 seconds before show time. He was as nonchalant as if he had just let the dog out,” I wrote at the time.

“The operating philosophy seems to be that there is no need for stage fright if you act like yourself.”

Nelson almost always began his interviews by asking guests how long they had lived in Alaska, a reliable icebreaker. He and Olson would interject “Praise the Lord” whenever the spirit moved them.

In a newspaper column long ago, John Kocsis wrote that “Closing Comments” was one of his favorite “out of the mainstream programs.” Long before the artifice of reality TV, Nelson and Olson were the real thing.

Nelson once took his camera to Kentucky Fried Chicken in Fairbanks on South Cushman to interview “the best waitress in the world,” according to Kocsis.

“Somewhat startled and nervous, the waitress—who did not know that the crew was coming—sat down at a table to be interviewed.”

“Nelson asked, ‘What is the strangest thing that ever happened to you as a waitress?’”

“You,” she told Nelson.

Olson was never as flamboyant as Nelson, but he was sincere and always ready to listen.

He showed many times that he could deal with the hardships that came into his life—one of which I wrote about in 2008.

On an August afternoon, driver Sandy Rabideau stopped near Skinny Dick’s Halfway Inn to allow her passenger—a six-pound white Pomeranian, to heed the call of nature.

Rabibeau heard a faint cry that she thought was a cat or some other animal.

“We heard something in the bushes, but I didn’t know what it was,” Rabideau said later.

“When we left, I rolled down my windows and that’s when I heard him,” she said.

What she heard was Dick Olson, who had been riding his motorcycle on the Parks Highway.

He had skidded on loose gravel and tumbled off the road into the brush, landing about 25 feet below the highway. He couldn't move and was there for about two hours.

“I think I must have blacked out a bit. And then a lady stopped to take care of her dog and I heard the door slam. That must have woke me up. As soon as I heard it, I hollered for help because I thought that was my only chance,” Olson said a few weeks later.

Although he had been hospitalized and seriously injured, he handled it with good grace and sounded as chipper as ever when I spoke to him as he was healing. “Praise the Lord,” he said.