Orion Samuelson

Growing up on the farm Samuelson was expected to take over the family business, but a leg disease made it impossible to do heavy work.

Samuelson was heard on WGN radio in Chicago for sixty years as the station's head agriculture broadcaster from 1960 through 2020, getting the job after his predecessor Norm Kraft abruptly resigned from his position on-air.

[3] He interviewed and/or met every US president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Donald Trump,[6] including John F. Kennedy (when he was still a Senator), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton,[7][6] and additionally, after he was 20 years out of the Oval Office, Harry S.

[7] During the 1960s, Samuelson hosted an early-morning show on WGN-TV, Top 'O' the Morning, first with organist Harold Turner, then with Max Armstrong.

[10] On the lighter side, Samuelson and a studio group dubbed the "Uff da Band" once recorded covers of Yogi Yorgesson's novelty songs I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas and Yingle Bells.

Samuelson held the same position in the broadcasting industry for 60 consecutive years through 2020,[11] second only to Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network announcer Vin Scully.

[16] In 2014 the CME Group and the National Association of Farm Broadcasting (NAFB) Foundation announced the inaugural recipient of the Orion Samuelson Scholarship ($5,000) for a senior at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.