✝
John Sipos
August 3rd, 2016
Rest In Peace
This will become a virtual memorial. Please send biographical info, stories, photos, and other memories to [email protected].
Do it now, before you forget and the memory fades with time.
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
Numbers 6:24-26
Born in Columbus, Georgia at Fort Benning, John grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, starting as a teen in the radio business at a local station there in 1960. He went on to work as an assistant to Morgan Beatty, Edwin Newman and other national correspondents for NBC News before a move to Florida.
In 1973, John Sipos landed on Tampa Bay working as a news anchor, writer, editor at WSUN, then Sarasota's all-news WQSA, WPLP, and finally 970 WFLA. John moved on to "no script" live news talk in 1989, radio and television, and then until now, independently created an award winning people, issues, and events program for what are now a 5 station group of CBS Radio stations reaching much of Florida.
For 19 years, John hosted and produced the award winning hOUR Tampa Bay (continuing 4 years as In Touch with Tampa Bay), a program broadcast on 5 major signals in what is now the CBS Radio cluster. hOUR Tampa Bay was an in-the-streets program allowing literally thousands of voices an opportunity to heard in a major market setting; from a would-be US president to those sleeping under a bridge abutment. Television, people centered host/producer, for PaxTV, now ION TV, and for Viacom/Paramount Tampa Bay.
The preceding was written by John Sipos.
On August 3, 2016, John passed away after heart surgery. According to http://www.radioyears.com, his many contributions to the Tampa Bay area include co-founding the Tampa Bay Press Club and founding the annual Tampa Bay Radio Broadcasters Reunion.
John also offered friendship and spiritual guidance to inmates on death row and the general population at Florida State Prison and Colorado. Long form television spokesperson for United Way of Tampa Bay. Participant political commentary programs on WEDU TV PBS Tampa Bay. Host/produced a 13 week series on the economy for the University of South Florida WUSF TV.
Postscript
When John Joined the broadcast staff at WHVW in Hyde Park, New York, about 1966, he became friends with one of the station's advertisers, Frank Becker, of Becker's Sales & Service, Inc, in Poughkeepsie. For a brief period, John joined the team at Becker's, and he and Frank established a close friendship that would endure for the remainder of John's life.
They lost contact when Frank was called to the ministry (frankbecker.com), and John moved to Florida, but happened to run into one another when Frank's vacationing family was driving north from Sarasota to Clearwater, and he and John stopped at the same time to buy fuel at the same gas station on the Sunshine Skyway Causeway.
Although John and his wife, Diane, legally separated in the late 90s, they remained devoted to one another and continued living together as husband and wife until the day of his passing. Whenever Frank and his wife, Joy, were visiting Florida, they'd have dinner together with John and Dianne at Cracker Barrel, and, when time permitted, spend a day together visiting some Florida attraction.
Written by John's best friend, Frank Becker, March 23, 2024.