Thirteen years ago this month, Baltimore and the nation lost the best talk show host in the country: Ron Smith.

Gone but not forgotten: Between us, we have heard talk show hosts across the nation, many of whom are bright but none who sport the erudition that was Ron’s trademark. There was no topic on which Ron was not conversant, and he was never a dilettante: He seemed to know all topics in depth — local, national, international, philosophic, artistic, historic and sports, and he could be humorous and even silly — he was completely unthreatened by disagreement.

Every year people remind us of how much Ron meant to them. Looking on Facebook on his birthday, we found Brian Tilton, who was one of Ron’s producers and our friend, who wrote and repeated yearly his post on Ron:

“Ron was one of the best in the business. Off air, he was just as kind and real. He was a good friend and remained a mentor even after I left the station to be a stay-at-home dad with my newborn daughter Paige. He even encouraged me at times when I did my radio show in New Hampshire. I got to visit Ron a week before his passing and he gave me [a] signed picture. As I left his home, which was awkward because I knew it would be the last time I see him, he stopped me and said, ‘Bulldog, do this one thing. Just tell the truth.’”

Ron was always flanked by his loyal producer, Ryan Bogash, and the late station manager, Jeff Beauchamp, both intensely loyal and knowledgeable. The entire successful team including Dave Durian, Robert Lang, Mark Miller, Allan Prell (frankly, not a favorite of Ron’s) was a news juggernaut, winning nearly a score of Edward R. Murrow Awards and general recognition for their great product.

Less empirical but true as true can be, WBAL under these men was the go-to reference for news in Baltimore and beyond. Ron also genuinely had the quality so often falsely attributed to popular figures: charisma, the quality by which such figures mystify their followers and appear supernatural in their leadership and knowledgeable beyond their ken.

To be a great talk show host, one must be fearless in declaiming on controversial topics, and Ron confronted honestly all opposing points of view. Honesty breeds contempt, and there were those who attributed to him points of view and prejudices he did not hold. When asked about such naysayers, he would, typical of Ron, just point to all of the countervailing evidence, realizing that one cannot be provocative without offending some for whom no amount of proof is sufficient.

One could only imagine Ron’s expounding on the fractious issues of the day: the 2024 presidential election, the budget wars, DEI, affirmative action, the Middle East, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, etc. Oh, does his legion of listeners miss him.

Ron’s courageous and intellectual approach to issues bolstered by his encyclopedic understanding of an incredible range of topics made him simply nonpareil.

One never stops hearing of Ron’s influence on others. Jimmy Mathis, former talk show host on WBAL, who managed, among other things, to secure an interview with Donald Trump, was inspired by Ron and speaks of him today as a major influence on his media work and his current employment at WBFF-TV in Baltimore.

Ron and Richard Vatz would often honestly disagree on his show, as Vatz was a Howard Baker conservative (who this year voted for Trump), and Ron was Trumpian before “Trumpian” had meaning. Ron wanted a tough military but was against its prolific use, and he was against rampant foreign adventurism. He was against silencing people who disagreed with him and avidly confronted disagreeing points of view, yet he was, unlike many of his competitors, always willing to let his interlocutors speak their mind.

Above all, he hated insipid conversations, even at lunch, wherein he was hilarious, and he was, parenthetically, a gourmand, unlike the boring eater one of the male authors of this piece is.

He was often prescient on his positions, e.g., his opposition to the Iraq War, but understood it would take time for history’s ratification of his perspective. He took the heat with good grace but did not yield. As with many of his views, his perspectives then are today majoritarian ones.

He was and remains the best “Talk Show Man,” the title accepted by him which caught on with his supporters after a local writer bestowed it on him pejoratively.

Ron Smith, intellectual and everyman hero, will never be replaced. His manifest excellence is dominant even after he has left us. Even today we are asked about the crazy politics and political rhetoric in America, “What would Ron say?”

Sometimes we know, but always we can say he wouldn’t have been surprised to know that X had occurred in “Absurdistan.”

June Smith was married to the late WBAL radio host Ron Smith. Richard E. Vatz (rvatz@towson.edu) is professor emeritus of political rhetoric at Towson University and author of “The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion: the Agenda-Spin Method” (Bookwrights House, 2024).