'Everyone loved this guy': Friends, colleagues remember WSAR's Hector 'Happy Hec' Gauthier

The morning voice of Greater Fall River for more than four decades, Hector Gauthier – day after day, week after week, year after year, on air and off – lived up to his nickname.

Happy Hec, the longtime radio personality and behind-the-scenes Mr. Everything at WSAR-1480, died on Friday after a brief illness. A Fall River resident and host of the Bristol County Breakfast Club weekdays from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., Gauthier, also the station's senior account executive, would have turned 81 on Dec. 15.

“The respect he had in the community was unbelievable,” said Bob Karam, a childhood friend of Gauthier and, along with his brother Jim Karam, owner of WSAR for more than three decades. “This is a great loss to our family. He made the radio station important to Fall River. I thought he was going to live forever. Everyone loved this guy.”

Happy Hec was full-speed-ahead at WSAR right up until Tuesday when he fell ill at work.

Mike Moran fondly recalls former WSAR colleague

Mike Moran worked in local radio for 27 years, and for 16 of those years, he sat five feet from Gauthier in the studio, during morning drive time, discussing current events, sports, local politics. They chatted with callers, read the news, shared the weather forecast. Moran marveled then and marvels now at Gauthier's genuine, low-key, warm and kind style that generations of listeners embraced.

“He had thousands of friends he never met,” a deeply saddened Moran said on Saturday morning, “but he connected with them.”

Gauthier was the 'go-to guy'

Businessman Will Flanagan, Fall River's former mayor, hosted an afternoon radio show on WSAR from 2016-2022. On Saturday morning, he described Gauthier as his on-air talent mentor, and more. An on-air star and top-flight salesman, Hec was also Flanagan's “go-to guy” when something malfunctioned with the broadcast. Flanagan said if the show would suddenly go off the air, he would yell down the hall for Hec who would, oh-so-calmly, remedy the problem with a push or two of a button or the turn or two of a dial.

“I always felt safe when he was around,” Flanagan said. “And he was always around. He was always in the building.”

Flanagan's connection with Gauthier runs well back before the ex-mayor got his afternoon radio gig. Flanagan said he well remembers how much of a loyal Hec listener his mother was. When Hec did an on-air trivia contest, Flanagan's mother would call in trying to win a prize.

When he was a fifth grader at the Letourneau School, Flanagan said, Happy Hec visited Mrs. Souza's class to do a live broadcast and to record the students reading their brief essays (on a long-forgotten topic) for future airing. “Thirty-five years later, when I was able to work with him, the flashbacks were awesome,” he said.

Karams called on Happy Hec right from the start

Gauthier started his local broadcasting career at Fall River's WALE-1400 (now WHTB). In what Moran said was Hec's lone professional foray out of Greater Fall River, he worked a few years at a New London, Conn. radio station.

In 1989, the Karam brothers, disturbed by the quality of content being broadcast on WALE, bought the station from its New York-state owners. But, Bob Karam said, they made the move only after convincing Happy Hec to happily return home.

“We called Hec and told him we can't buy the station unless you come over to work,” Karam said. “What the heck did we know about running a radio station?”

The Karams changed the 1400 call letters to WHTB (home town broadcasting). Three years later, they bought WSAR-1480, made WHTB a Portuguese language station and consolidated the stations into the WSAR building on Home Street in Somerset.

From then on WSAR was Hec's professional home. “It worked because Hector Gauthier was there,” Bob Karam said.

Sue Nedar, sales manager and general manager at WSAR, worked with Hec for10 years. “Hector was my friend before anything else,” she said. “He was an individual who was sincerely concerned for other people and circumstances.”

Community's praise for Gauthier well-deserved

Nedar and Moran both emphasized that the Happy Hec you heard on the air was the same person you'd encounter on the phone or in person, and that the tidal wave of Hector Gauthier praises being shared now on social media – comments like “He's the best” “Great guy” “Salt of the Earth” “They don't come any better” – are exactly what people would have said had you asked them about Happy Hec two weeks, two months, two years or two decades ago.

“The radio business,” Moran said, “tends to attract self-absorbed, pretentious people. He was the exact opposite. He didn't have to be the center of attention. He wasn't looking for that.”

Moran recalled Hec as a dedicated newsman when the Blizzard of '78 virtually paralyzed the Spindle City. The two of them slept on inflatable mattresses in the second floor of the WALE building, walking to Government Center for crisis updates, and despite being “punch drunk,” getting the job done on the mic.

Gauthier, Nedar said, was a consummate professional, an uplifting pro who was “funny as hell” and very encouraging. During stressful times when the work pressure cooker was turned up high and the workload felt overwhelming, Nedar said, Hec would encourage her to “eat the meal in small bites and we'll pick up the pieces and move forward.”

During a mostly sleepless Friday night when she pondered whether she should do her 9-to-11 show live on Saturday morning, Nedar said she thought about Hec's move-forward attitude. She did her live show, just, she believes, as Hec would have wanted.

WSAR's backbone of knowledge

Hec was also WSAR's institutional knowledge vault. He knew, Nedar said, what the blinking interval should be for the lights at the top of the station towers. He knew when the beacons needed to be replaced. Using a furniture analogy to describe WSAR, Nedar said that with Hec gone, the station feels like a table minus one leg. “Everything is out of balance,” she said.

Bob Karam said he admired Hec for his loyalty – to the community, to the radio station, and especially to his beloved family. Nedar said that Hec, married for 50-plus years, would routinely refer to his wife Maureen as “my baby.”

“It was a love affair for all time,” she added. “And he was so very, very proud of his daughter, Lisa, and his grandson C.J. and his nursing career, and of his great grandson, Zedek.”

“One of the nicest people I've met in my life. I never saw him angry,” Bob Karam said, adding with a smile, “How he worked with the Karams, I'll never know.”

“To tune in Monday and not hear his voice, that will be a surreal moment,” Flanagan said. “Local radio will never be the same without his voice in the morning.”

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: WSAR-1480 radio personality Hector Gauthier dies after brief illness