DJ DON IMUS DIES AT 79 AT COLLEGE STATION HOSPITAL

  

Controversial radio host Don Imus has died at the age of 79.

According to a family statement, Imus died Friday morning at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in College Station.  He had been hospitalized there since Christmas Eve.

Imus, who moved to a ranch in the Gay Hill area of Washington County from New Mexico in 2015, was well-known for his “Imus in the Morning” show on MSNBC for nearly 50 years.  He began in radio in New York in 1971, and was inducted into the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Hall of Fame in 1989.

Imus made several controversial remarks over the air, and was considered by many to be one of the first “shock jocks”.  In 2007, after describing the mostly African-American Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos”, his show was dropped, and he was fired from CBS radio.

In 2009, Imus announced he had prostate cancer.  His last radio broadcast was March 29, 2018.

Imus raised over $40 million for groups including the CJ Foundation for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).  In 1999, he and his wife Deirdre bought a ranch in New Mexico, which served as the site for a charity that benefitted children with cancer, along with siblings of SIDS victims.  He and his wife also contributed to the Barnhill Center restoration project in Brenham, donating $150,000 to the project in 2017.

Imus is survived by his wife and six children.