Dobbyn was legendary
but for all the wrong reasons. Just about every Dobbyn story I know or ever heard was for something outrageous he did, or said on the air. I worked for him for a little over a year in the late 60s, chasing cops news out of the old Press Room at 61 Riesner St, and the only guideline he ever gave me was to cover all the "blood and guts" stories I could find and make my stories as "colorful" as I could.
This is the guy who, during the riots at TSU, told KIKK listeners that the City ought to send some steam-rollers over to TSU and "blacktop" Wheeler Street. That quote made the national wire and inspired a number of national commentaries and editorials, all blasting Houston for allowing a jerk like Dobbyn to be anywhere near a radio station microphone.
Ask Jim Carola to tell you about the night Dobbyn drove the KILT mobile news car through the wall of a house and into a family's bedroom. Dobbyn told me the car stopped right alongside the bed of the couple who lived there, and there he was -- sh-t faced drunk -- grinning back at the terrified man and woman, saying something stupid like "Howdy folks. Nice to meet you". It cost Dickie Rosenfeld a ton of money to pay the family off and get the station out of that situation.
That story is true, but there's another, that may or may not be true, but it's the story of how and why Dobbyn left KILT. I've heard from a couple of people that in the early 60s, when the Houston Oilers were still new, Bud Adams curried favor with local sports writers and newsmen by flying them to Las Vegas for a weekend at his expense. Adams paid for their hotel room and meals, but they had to pay for their own gambling.
The story is that Dobbyn went to the dining room, order steak dinners for everybody, and put the bill --plus a very big tip on his room tab. He had struck a deal with the waiter, in which the waiter would split the tip with Dobbyn, who took his cut and put on the blackjack and dice tables.
He ran that little scam at least several times over the weekend, and his room tab ended up costing Bud Adams several thousand dollars. When he got the bill, Adams -- reportedly -- went storming into Dickie Rosenfeld's office at 500 Lovett demanding to know Dickie was going to do about it. Rosenfeld immediately fired Dobbyn and docked his last paycheck the cost of his weekend in Vegas.
Again, I don't know how much of that story is true, or even if it's true at all, but I can tell you it sounds like something Dobbyn would have done. Nobody who knew him would doubt it. He was that kind of guy. I'm told that this is what killed those free weekends in Vegas for local news folk. Adams stopped doing it after this incident.
Dick Dobbyn was one of the most creative and talented radio geniuses this town has ever seen, but he was also the most outrageously self-centered and amoral individual I've ever met. He lived for getting the maximum enjoyment out of every moment, and he would do whatever was necessary to get it, and it didn't matter if it was right or wrong. It never entered his mind.
