Radio legend ‘Waltah’ Pacheco dies at 78

Walter “Waltah” Pacheco, a Hilo radio personality whose unique on-air pidgin style made him a must listen for many from the 1970s to the early 2000s, died Aug. 31 at home. He was 78.

According to KBIG-FM’s Rod Pacheco, his uncle was working for Hawaii County Parks and Recreation when he got his start doing a sports report for the late disc jockey Mel “Mynah Bird” Medeiros and calling high school basketball games on the radio.

But it was “The Waltah Show,” which aired on AM stations KHLO and KPUA, that made Pacheco a local legend.

“He would get a lot of listeners upset with the things that he’d say. Nothing held him back,” Rod Pacheco said. “There were those that really loved him for being that way, you know. Like Mynah Bird, he did the police blotter, but he did it a totally different way. Every time he read someone’s name, he would comment on the individual who was arrested. And some of them would really not appreciate some of those comments.

“There’s people who loved him and waited for him to come on. And, I remember, on certain days there were people waiting outside the studio and yelling at something that he said about a family member, maybe on the police blotter.”

There was another side to “Waltah” though, his nephew said.

“People who called and asked him to play a song for their aunty, uncle, cousin, whoever, who was sick in the hospital, he’d do it, and a lot of times, he’d get flowers and go up to visit.”

The Hilo-born Pacheco was one of 10 siblings who grew up in a plantation camp on Amauulu Road. He was an amateur boxer and basketball referee who never shied away from controversy.

Pacheco admitted to, and publicly apologized for, a drug problem in the 1990s. And at least twice, a lawsuit or threatened lawsuit against a station caused management to part ways with the outspoken Pacheco.

But whenever he had a microphone, he had an audience.

“He had a natural connection with a segment of the population who found a lot in common with them. And it was very much at the grass-roots level,” said KPUA’s Ken Hupp, who worked with Pacheco in the 1980s.

“He befriended them; he socialized with them. He brought their stories to life in the community with all the characters that he created, like John Palakiko and others who were regular callers in to his show. He would talk about them. And I think a lot of the people who would listen would basically want to be a part of what he was creating, that maybe he would talk about them, as well.

“He wasn’t just a voice on the radio they had no physical connection or real-life attachment to.”

Pat Pacheco described his older brother as “an entertainer.”

“He would piss you off. He would say things that sometimes hurt people, but he didn’t do it to hurt people,” Pat Pacheco said. “He was an entertainer like Muhammad Ali. He’d say, ‘I’m gonna knock you out in one to three rounds.’ Everybody went to see him get knocked out. Waltah’s attitude was, to me, make everybody mad, they’re gonna listen to you. And sure as hell, they did.

“His unique way on the radio, I think that’s what people will remember him for. But I want people to know Waltah would go up to the hospital a lot to visit people. And people don’t know this. He would help people a lot, any which way he could.”

Pacheco is survived by sons, Walter Pacheco Jr., Lawrence Pacheco and Jaime Pacheco; daughters, Lisa (Simon) Simmons, Marci Arizumi and Roberta Trevino; hanai daughter, Stephanie (Reginald Sr.) Atiz; brothers, Abraham (Terry) Pacheco and Patrick Leroy (Lorraine) Pacheco; grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

Visitation is 5-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24, at Dodo Mortuary Chapel. Wake service at 6 p.m. Visitation again 9-10 a.m. Monday, Sept. 25, at the chapel. Funeral service at 10 a.m. Burial to follow at Alae Cemetery. Casual attire.

Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.