Jun 18, 2008 5:58 pm US/Eastern
Miami Dignitaries Attend Raul Alarcon's Funeral
CORAL GABLES (AP) ―
Music producer Emilio Estefan and salsa icon Willy Chirino were among more than 300 mourners who braved heavy rain Wednesday to honor media mogul and late Cuban exile Pablo Raul Alarcon Sr.
Father Alberto Cutie, a celebrity in his own right with Spanish-language talk shows and radio programs, led the Roman Catholic mass at the Church of the Little Flower in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.
Alarcon died June 11 at the age of 82.
Estefan recalled how Alarcon opened space for Latin artists.
"Thank you for everything you've done not only for Cubans, but for all Latinos," he said.
Alarcon founded the Spanish-language media company, Spanish Broadcasting System or SBS. The publicly traded company owns more than 20 radio stations nationwide, as well as the TV station Mega TV and an Internet site among other holdings.
Chirino choked up as he remembered bantering over his songs with Alarcon, who was free with his criticisms but whose opinion Chirino found invaluable.
Alarcon fled Cuba in 1960 after Fidel Castro's government nationalized his network of radio stations there. He worked initially as a broadcaster in New York, then in publicity before returning to radio.
Pablo Alarcon Jr. recalled how his father produced what he said was the first Spanish-language programs on FM radio in New York in 1970, but the station owners told him they didn't want a "Latin station," and returned to English programming.
Eventually, he bought his own station in New York in 1983 and began airing popular Spanish-language music and programs.
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