LAPORTE | Ken Coe is retiring after spending more than a half century in radio, including an even 50 years in LaPorte.

Coe, 70, is stepping down as general manager at WLOI-WCOE but will stay on in a more limited capacity as president of LaPorte County Broadcasting Co.

Replacing him as general manager at both radio stations is Dennis Siddall, the current program director and morning show host on WCOE-FM also known as 96.7 The Eagle.

Siddall, 46, will be in charge of daily operations.

"I still plan to stop in from time to time," said Coe, whose roots in radio date back to the 1940s.

Coe was in grade school and living in Crown Point when on Saturdays he would tag along with his dad to his job as general manager of WIND-AM in Gary.

His father, Dee Coe, later formed a group that founded WWCA-AM, also in Gary, where Ken, in the seventh grade, began getting coffee for staff members and running other errands.

Coe later found himself in charge of four family owned radio stations in Gary, LaPorte and South Haven, Mich. Several years after his father's death in 1981, only the LaPorte broadcasting studios were kept in the fold to reduce his extreme workload.

"I would run back and forth each day," Coe said.

For more than 30 years, Coe also was host of the popular call-in show, "Sound Off" on both WLOI-WCOE before recently stepping down from the microphone.

He and his late father are both members of the Indiana Broadcast Hall of Fame.

His father was part of a group that bought WLOI in 1958 and founded WCOE in 1964.

Although still in decent health, Coe said he decided to retire because he no longer has the stamina to work full time and wants to enjoy life while he's still physically able.

The decision came after consulting with his wife, DeEtta, and his doctors.

"I just felt now was the time to step back and let somebody else younger with new ideas and a fire in their belly to really take over," he said.

Siddall said he plans no immediate changes.

"He's very hard working and a person I've been grooming to be in this position," Coe said.