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'Prairie Home Companion' sound effects man Tom Keith dies
"A Prairie Home Companion"'s Tom Keith
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A Prairie Home Companion
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Tom Keith, a longtime cast member for "A Prairie Home Companion," died suddenly at his home Sunday night.
Keith collapsed in his home in Minnesota. Officials say they haven’t determined why he died. He was 64.
Keith appeared as an actor in thousands of comedy skits and phony commercials on "A Prairie Home Companion," but was best known as the show’s sound effects man. A recurring routine was the “sound effects challenge,” in which host Garrison Keillor would tell a story requiring increasingly outrageous and incongruous sound effects.
Keith worked at Minnesota Public Radio for more than 30 years, beginning in the 1970s. Early on he was Keillor’s studio engineer for its old morning show on KSJN in St. Paul. Many of the original ideas for what became "A Prairie Home Companion" were developed on that show. Keith went on to cohost the morning show for many years.
"A Prairie Home Companion" is produced by Southern California Public Radio's parent company, American Public Media.
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