LOCAL HISTORY

Dee the Wake Up Man

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DEE… THE WAKEUP MAN

Delmas H. Franklin
1930 – 2006

 

MOST EVERYONE WHO OWNED A RADIO and lived within the Shannon/Rome listening area during the last half of the 1900’s, knew and listened to disc jockey, Delmas Franklin’s cheerful antics on his radio show. An eight-year-old “Little Delmas” started out with his two brothers and their grandfather, playing in a bluegrass type band. As he grew older and moved into radio, Delmas never gave up his music. He organized his own string band called The Georgia Ramblers, that for many years played for local functions and Saturday Night dances.

 

FOR DECADES, DELMAS with his natural “radio voice”, pure wit and superb musical talent entertained his daily radio audience with his morning show: “Dee, The Wake-up Man”. Shortly after his retirement from radio and not long before his death, Delmas recorded a CD of some twenty cuts from his old radio programs. 

 

WHEN DELMAS FRANKLIN DIED in 2006, his funeral was held at Rome’s First Baptist Church with a great overflowing crowd in attendance. At the appointed time for the services to begin, with everyone quietly seated in their pews… on comes the church’s PA system with this! Brother Dee preaching his own funeral?! You see, some of Dee’s radio buddies had gotten hold of his CD and extracted various and appropriate sections from it to be used throughout the service. In the end, everyone agreed… it was, by far, one of the best and most appropriate sendoffs anyone had ever witnessed.

To hear the full 70-minute audio, view the video below.