Remembering WXRT’s Lin Brehmer
• UPDATED: We were deeply saddened to learn that Lin Brehmer, a beloved fixture at Audacy Triple A WXRT/Chicago for more than three decades, died Sunday at the age of 68. His longtime colleague Terri Hemmert posted this message on the WXRT website that reads: “It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that we all lost our best friend. Lin Brehmer fought cancer as long as he could. He passed early this morning, peacefully, with his wife and son by his side. Tomorrow at 10am, his XRT family will celebrate the incredible life of our best friend in the whole world. We’ll hold each other up through this heart-breaking time. Lin would want that. Take nothing for granted.”
It was last July when Brehmer revealed that he had been battling prostate cancer for several years, before taking a medical sabbatical that lasted until Nov. 28, when he returned to do 10am-1pm.
As reported by The Chicago Tribune, Brehmer started his radio career at WQBK/Albany, NY (where he was known as “The Reverend of Rock ‘n’ Roll”), before joining WXRT as Music Director in 1984. He had been on the air on ‘XRT since 1991, doing mornings until 2020, when he moved to middays.
Brehmer met his wife, Sara Farr, in college. “Yes, we were college sweethearts,” she said on Sunday, adding that they dated for 16 years before getting married. “We didn’t want to ruin a good thing. We got married in 1997 and it was wonderful. I learned very early on that I would have to share Lin with thousands of others. I understood, and was happy to do so because there really was no difference between the man on the radio and the man I knew.”
