NASHUA – Some years ago, a local Rotarian, upon hearing stories about a fellow member’s uncanny memory and ability to remember faces forever, decided he’d test those reports by challenging his brother Rotarian to put a name to every face in the crowded meeting room that day.

More than willing to oblige, the affable gent stood at the microphone, and in the famous voice known to generations of Nashuans, went through the entire room without missing so much as a middle initial.

While his amazing sense of recall and immense popularity among radio listeners is certainly legendary, Frank G. Teas, who died Saturday at St. Joseph Hospital, was the consummate mentor, church and community volunteer, Scout leader, youth sports coach and family man whose years of hosting kids’ and teens’ radio shows and being Nashua’s Santa Claus at Christmastime were as much for enjoyment as they were work assignments.

Teas, who was 81, passed after a period of failing health that began early this spring, shortly before he and his wife Susan returned to Nashua from their summer home in Florida, Susan Teas said Monday.

In addition to his wife of nearly 43 years, Teas leaves two sons, G. Frank Teas of Nashua, president and CEO of The Nashua Bank, and Robert Teas of Georgia among his survivors.

Calling hours are today from 4-8 p.m. at Farwell Funeral Home, 18 Lock St. The funeral service is Thursday at 11 a.m. at St. Philip Greek Orthodox Church, 500 W. Hollis St., followed by burial at Edgewood Cemetery.

Longtime friend Carolyn Choate, who owns Nashua’s TV13 with husband Gordon Jackson, recalled Teas as “a local media icon” who was “one of a dying breed whose career spanned the heyday of local radio.”

“I am deeply saddened by his passing,” Choate said Monday. “As the only (advertising) sales rep for WYCN TV13 all these years, I idolized him for the consummate salesman he was,” she added, referring to Teas’ transformation from on-air personality to sales manager for WSMN and its affiliated 1590 Broadcaster weekly newspaper.

He was the top salesman for both organizations for many years while still writing, producing and voicing radio commercials for his clients, which forced a hectic schedule and many long hours, Susan Teas said. “Sometimes I’d find him asleep at the kitchen table,” she said, “especially on Thursdays. … That was his busiest day. He wouldn’t let anyone else lay out his ads. He wanted to make sure they were done right.”

Born in Manchester, Teas graduated from Central High in 1946 and attended Syracuse University, where, as a freshman, he announced basketball games on the campus radio station, and for a time, worked alongside a sophomore named Dick Clark, now a household name in the field.

One of Teas’ most memorable moments was an interview with a Boston Celtics’ rookie phenom named Bob Cousy, whom he approached one night when the Celts were in town to play the old Syracuse Nationals.

After stints with WABI television in Bangor, Maine, and WKNE radio in Keene, Teas was lured to Nashua in 1958 by Claude Nichols, a former mayor and TV sales and service store owner who had founded a new radio station called WSMN.

There, the young Teas was soon joined by fellow future radio legends Ed Lecius and Al Rock, forming a broadcast triumvirate never equalled in Nashua radio history.

“Frank was a good friend and mentor,” said Ed Lecius, the early broadcaster’s son who joined the business as a teenager. “After my dad died, I’d turn to Frank for help, he was there for me.”

Lecius recalls teaming with Teas for Nashua High basketball games, which were carried live home and away and drew hundreds of listeners who weren’t able to make road games. “Frank was my father’s color man at first, then I was Frank’s color man,” said Lecius, who took over the play-by-play when Teas moved to the sales department.

Few are the longtime Nashuans who never attended a ceremony, banquet, city function or any event with a speaking program where Frank Teas was the emcee. One of the era’s most sought-after emcees, Teas’ presence and wit at the mike livened even the driest of programs, attendees often said.

At WSMN, Teas covered just about everything there was to cover over the years, from The Garden Show with the Smiths, owners of the former Gate City Gardens, and later, landscaper Walter Lang, to one of WSMN’s most popular call-in shows, Bargain Box, a swap-shop for listeners selling or looking for items.

Susan Teas met her future husband while working at WSMN summers during her college years. “I remember we talked about music a lot. He had this thing for jazz,” she said. “I can’t remember the band’s name, but our first date was to see a jazz band in Massachusetts.”

For years, Susan Teas was among the hundreds, possibly thousands, of Nashuans who woke up to her husband’s voice on the appropriately named “The Wake-Up Show.”

“I always listened to the show,” she said, adding she also went to many NHS basketball games her husband called over the years.

Indeed, the so-called “remote broadcasts,” despite the heavy lifting and technological limitations compared to today, were probably Teas’ favorites. For instance, there was the “Pepsi Skating Party” he hosted on weekend evenings at the old Turnpike Rollaway roller-skating rink.

“For six Pepsi bottle-caps, you could skate for a couple of hours,” Lecius said. “He’d give away Pepsi and other things. It was pretty popular.”

Another teen favorite was the “Top 20 Tunes” show, where Teas would set up in the music section of the old W.T. Grant store on Saturday mornings and spin the latest 45s.

“We’d play the top songs, give away records and albums, and I’d talk with many of the kids on the radio,” Teas said several years ago, just after he retired from his 44-year career.

Since he arrived in 1958, Teas saw four ownership changes, seven general managers and around 300 WSMN employees pass by him.

While radio was central to Frank Teas’ life, his son G. Frank Teas said, his resulting celebrity and popularity aren’t what defined him as a man.

“No matter … where we were or … who we were seeing, he would always say … be nice, be good, be careful.’” Teas said. “Those words … were his credo and how he lived his own life.

“His profession put him in the limelight,” he added. “But it’s because he was such a great guy that he was so well-known.”

Dean Shalhoup can be reached at 673-3100, ext. 31, or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.