It is sad for me to report the unexpected death of my former colleague Stan Sluberski. Stan was found in his bed Sunday morning October 12th, apparently having suffered a heart attack. He was 49 years old. Sadly for me, the last time I spoke with Stan was at the wake of his good friend Nancy after her death from cancer three years ago.

I joined Stan as co-host of A Polka Sunday With Friends on WBFO in early 1980, about two years after he started producing the program. I started as a fill-in host while he was recuperating from a back injury suffered during his daytime job on the railroad. He invited me to stay on when he returned to the show some weeks later. When I left A Polka Sunday With Friends on WBFO six years later, to join Stan Jasinski's polka shows on WHTT-AM in Buffalo, Stan Sluberski continued as a solo polka host on WBFO on Sunday nights. Since I continued working in a non-polka capacity at WBFO, I would still see Stan on occasion at WBFO. For a time in the mid 1980s, Stan also hosted a commercial polka show on Saturday evenings on WHLD-AM in Niagara Falls, and WBFO program director David Benders would even call on Stan occasionally to do a jazz show, which he did quite well. Around 1992, Stan Sluberski left WBFO to go into business, as a partner in a small tavern in Buffalo's Broadway Market neighborhood. That move surprised me somewhat, since I knew how much he loved doing A Polka Sunday With Friends.

Stan Sluberski loved radio. He was a classical music radio host when he went to college in Detroit in the 1960s, and he and I would spend many hours chatting about various aspects of the radio business. I especially enjoyed his infectuous laugh, and I always tried to break him up on the air during our times together on Sunday nights, just so our listeners could hear him laugh. Stan was a consummate professional in his radio presentation, though, and he really enjoyed doing special broadcasts, including trans-Atlantic phone calls to Lech Walesa in Poland at Christmastime, in the days when the Communists still ran the country. Stan insisted on playing NPR's annual reading of the Declaration of Independence on the A Polka Sunday With Friends show closest to July 4th. Stan and I had the pleasure of hosting several annual polka marathons in the early 1980s, at the Polish Falcons Club in Depew. These dances were held to benefit WBFO, which is a non-commercial public radio station. And I'll never forget the annual Dyngus Day routines of traveling from party to party. Stan would interview band members, promoters, and dancers, featuring them on several shows in the following weeks.

The Buffalo area polka musicians liked and respected Stan immensely, and Stan Sluberski was the radio host chosen to introduce the Dynatones' Live Wire album. Stan's is the first voice you hear on Side 1, Cut 1. Stan also featured interviews with Scrubby Seweryniak and Larry Trojak when the Dynatones' Chapter Seven album was released. While other polka shows shied away from the story of Christ's passion done polka style, Stan Sluberski made a special program out of it. And when other bands released new records (and later, CDs), Stan would set aside plenty of time on A Polka Sunday With Friends to bring in the bandleaders to discuss their latest work. He was always hard at work compiling the "Musicians' Billboard", making sure that his listeners knew where their favorites bands would be in the coming weeks.

God Bless You Stan...and thank you for honoring me with the privilege of being your co-host, and hopefully your friend, for these many years.