Remembering Chad Elliot

 The wife of Zimmer Marketing marketing manager Chad Elliott, the long time host of KZRG's Morning News Watch announced this evening her husband has passed away, one day shy of their 14th wedding anniversary.

With the heaviest of heart, I have ever experienced in my life, I want to let our friends and family know the world lost an amazing man this morning.

Elliot was host of Morning News Watch from 2009 to 2018 and has worked for Zimmer Marketing for 27 years, but it was a decision Elliot made as programming director for Zimmer on May 22, 2011 that helped guide a stricken Joplin community through the tornado and its aftermath.

Elliot pulled the plug on all regular programming and all commercials on KZRG and the other Zimmer stations to provide tornado coverage around the clock.

Earlier, wearing one of his other hats, it was Elliott, along with Rob Meyer, who offered listeners their first first-hand accounts of the devastation that had been wrought by the tornado.

From a CNN report shortly after the tornado:

Immediately after Sunday’s killer tornado, Elliot said emergency crews drove to the station to provide information for broadcast. The station began telling people where to go for medical help. Or what number to dial for information about the missing. Or where they could buy gas or where there was still a Walmart standing.

Elliot said it reminded him of the family members of the victims of the September 11 attacks who held up photographs of their loved ones in hopes they were not under the rubble. Only, he said, there were no pictures in Joplin — just trembling voices.

One after another, the calls streamed in.

“We had people calling about family members who went to Walmart to pick up a few items, buy something for Sunday dinner and they just didn’t come home,” Elliot said.

The radio hosts tried to console and comfort even though they, too, had not been spared from tragedy. Elliot said seven of his 30 employees lost their homes. They still reported to work.