Mike "The Duke" Donegan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mike “The Duke” Donegan is a broadcast and legal specialist in Nashville, Tennessee. The award winning broadcast journalist and humorist currently co-hosts a show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Donegan was born in Nashville to Genovia and Beck Donegan, retail bakery owners. He is single, has one brother, John Donegan, an engineer, photographer and music executive and two sons, Nick Donegan and Barry Donegan, lead singer for the band Look What I Did.
Donegan attended Hillsboro High School in Nashville, Tennessee, graduated with a B.A. in social science from George Peabody College and a J.D. from the University of Memphis Law School.
He began his radio career at WMAK-AM in Nashville, where he worked with radio legend Scott Shannon. Donegan was a newscaster and dj at WMPS Memphis while in law school, and later served as news director for WSM AM/FM in Nashville and a senior news producer and feature reporter for WSMV-TV, also in Nashville.
Donegan wrote television shows for Ted Turner’s WTBS in Atlanta and was head writer for the "Nashville Now" show, featuring Ralph Emery and Minnie Pearl and broadcast on the cable outlet The Nashville Network (now Spike TV).
With Mike Bohan, Donegan co-hosted "Misc." (pronounced "miscellanea"), an Emmy Award-winning comedy and music video show for WSMV in the early 1980s. The show aired for three years following "Saturday Night Live". Donegan and Bohan also used the title for their similar late-night Sunday radio show on WSM-FM, which ran from the late 1970s until a 1983 format change.
In 1983, Donegan moved to Los Angeles, where he was producer and co-host for Gerry House (a longtime Nashville radio personality in his own right) at KLAC, the flagship station of the Los Angeles Lakers. While at KLAC, Donegan was the announcer for television talk show host Wally George.
In 1989, Donegan returned to Nashville to join Carl P. Mayfield as the co-host for Mayfield’s morning radio show on WKDF, and stayed there until 2003, working with a series of co-hosts, including Ian Punnett, standup comics Carl Faulkenberry and Jim Patterson, Big Dave Chandler and comedienne Beth Donahue. In late 2003, Mayfield and Donegan moved to WGFX for a very short stint, and then resurfaced in 2006 on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Donegan serves as the public address announcer for the Tennessee Titans and the Nashville Kats.
Donegan has also worked as a legal assistant for a large West Coast law firm and for the State of Tennessee. He has also served as an instructor for Bachus, Inc and American Trainco, teaching a course on industrial pumps. Further, he has taught for the court systems in Davidson and Williamson counties in Tennessee, specializing in alcohol and drug prevention and anger management.
