Entity | Carl Kasell

Carl Ray Kasell (/ˈkæsəl/; April 2, 1934 – April 17, 2018) was an American radio personality. He was a newscaster for National Public Radio, and later as the official judge and scorekeeper of the weekly news quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! until his retirement in 2014. A native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Carl Ray Kasell was a student of drama in high school, where one of his mentors was Andy Griffith, then a high school drama instructor. Although Griffith urged Kasell to pursue a career in theatre, Kasell preferred radio. Kasell began practicing his newscaster voice as a child and got his first on-air job at 16. In an interview with Renée Montagne just before his final broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition, Kasell revealed that he knew he would be in radio at a young age. He said that he hid behind the radio to fool passers-by into thinking they were listening to the radio when they in fact were hearing the young Kasell.