The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss Legend Stan Torgerson Passes Away
6/26/2006 | Athletics
June 26, 2006
OXFORD, Miss. - Stan Torgerson, 82, who became an Ole Miss legend as the "Voice of the Rebels," passed away Monday night at Rush Foundation Hospital in Meridian, Miss.
Visitation is set for 9:30 Thursday morning at Barham Funeral Home on Highway 39 North in Meridian, followed by the service at 11:00. Burial will be at Forest Lawn Cemetery, which is located next to Barham Funeral Home.
Torgerson served as play-by-play announcer for 17 years at Ole Miss as he was at the mike for 176 Rebel football games and 462 basketball games, a period which spanned four decades.
Torgerson first broadcast Ole Miss Rebel football in 1955 and 1956 over a Memphis radio station. He inaugurated the Ole Miss TV show in 1966, and then resumed his play-by-play work on the Rebel Radio Network from 1967 to 1973, and then from 1978 to 1984.
He helped organize the Ole Miss basketball network during the 1968-69 season, and also did the College World Series when Ole Miss participated in 1972.
Although Torgerson sold his Meridian radio station, WQIC, in 1990, he continued to write a syndicated column that appeared in papers throughout the southeast.
In 2000, the Ole Miss Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame honored Torgerson with its Contribution to Amateur Football Award. Since 1993, he had served as Chairman of the Mississippi Heisman Trophy Committee.
Torgerson had worked as a news reporter and talk-show host at WTOK until May 25 when he retired after 61 years in broadcasting.
Torgerson and his wife, Dorothy, have two children, Larry and Barbara, both Ole Miss graduates. Larry earned three football letters for the Rebels in 1968-70.