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Dick Kay, a no-nonsense, incisive inquisitor who had one of the longest political reporting careers in Chicago, died early Thursday at 84.
He had been found unresponsive in his favorite recliner at his St. Charles home Monday, according to his familys, and taken to Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva, where he died. The cause of death was a brain hemhorrage, his son Eric Snodgrass said.
Mr. Kay had a stentorian voice that sliced through the noise at crime scenes and news conferences like a bass baritone in an opera. It seemed to command answers, even from those who might have preferred to slink away.
Kay, who went by the nickname Doogie, spent 38 years at NBC 5 as a political editor and longtime union steward for reporters at the station. I always knew he was going to be fair, Carol Mosely Braun said. And that s all anybody can ever ask for.
During this time, he won several major awards with his longtime producer Anna Vasser.
He also won a coveted Peabody for a series on taxpayer waste by the Illinois General Assembly. He wasn t trying to pursue a gotcha, said Chief Judge Tim Evans. He just wanted the public to know the truth.
Prior to his decades at NBC 5, Kay worked in Peoria and Green Bay under his legal name Richard Snodgrass. He later changed his last name to his wife s first name.