Wednesday, May 7, 2003 | 9:28 a.m.
Many people did not know his face, and fewer knew his name, but the distinctive baritone voice of Ralph Menard made him one of the Las Vegas Valley's most recognizable media personalities.
Menard's station identification -- "KVVU-TV Channel 5, Henderson, Laaaaaaaaaas Vegas" -- became part of Las Vegas lexicon, familiar to anyone who turned on a television from the mid-1970s to 2001.
Menard, who worked nearly a half century in Las Vegas radio and television broadcasting, died April 30 at St. Rose Dominican Hospital's Siena campus from complications of diabetes. He was 74.
Services for the Las Vegas resident of 36 years will be 1 p.m. Saturday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern. Visitation will be 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the funeral home. A gathering will follow at KVVU Channel 5 studios at 25 TV-5 Drive, off Sunset Road and Mountain Vista Street.
"Ralph would go into fast food restaurants and, as he placed his order, people would hear him and say, 'you're the Henderson/Laaaaaaaas Vegas guy,"' said Steve Molinaro, KVVU's videotape librarian and a longtime friend. "He loved being recognized and would gladly say the line for people if they asked him."
"Ralph's voice was so distinctive and the gimmick was of his own doing. It was not scripted for him," said longtime Las Vegas businessman Herb Kaufman, who in the 1970s and '80s co-owned KVVU with entertainer Johnny Carson.
Molinaro, who in the late 1970s was the station's film editor, said Menard came up with the signature catch phrase while fooling around on the microphone trying different voices. He liked what he heard and just kept doing it on the air. Voice-overs were done live in those days, but later were audiotaped, Molinaro said.
Menard worked for KVVU from 1973 until 2001, when his job was eliminated through cutbacks. His voice-overs no longer are heard on station programming.
"He was a very gentle soul, whose personality matched his soothing voice," said Leilani Molinaro, executive secretary to the KVVU general manager, wife of Steve Molinaro and a longtime friend of Menard's. "He was the office jokester, who cracked everyone up."
Born June 21, 1928, in Michigan, Menard moved with his family to San Diego, where he graduated from San Diego High. In the late 1940s he graduated from Don Martin Broadcasting School in Hollywood.
An Army veteran of the Korean War, Menard returned to California after his military service and became program director at San Diego's KLBQ radio in 1952. From 1956-62 he was a disc jockey at XEAK and XERB in Mexico.
After being self-employed for five years, Menard came to Las Vegas in 1967 to take a disc jockey job at KLUC. In 1973 he joined the staff at KVVU, which at the time was the valley's only independent TV station.
Early on Menard hosted the "Trading Post Movie" which was broadcast at 11 a.m. weekdays. During breaks in the program, Menard read classified ads, selling viewers' items such as used cars.
Menard also did numerous other voice-overs, introductions and locally produced commercials for the station.
Menard is survived by two sons, Ralph Menard Jr., of Lubbock, Texas, and Kevin Menard of Colorado Springs, Colo.; a daughter, Julie Good of Altamonte Springs, Fla.; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
The family said donations can be made in Menard's memory to the Diabetes Foundation.
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