Bob Miller, of Astoria, is a former Portland radio personality.

If one of the conductors on the Astoria Riverfront Trolley sounds as if he belongs on the radio, that’s because he was.

Bob Miller, who joined the all-volunteer trolley team this year, worked in radio broadcasting for four decades. Before retiring in 2013, he was a popular radio personality in Portland, hosting ensemble news shows for a combined 33 years at AM stations KEX and KPAM.

Miller won Billboard Magazine’s National Air Personality of the Year award for 1974 in the small market category.

Now he uses his deep, jovial voice to tell the history of Astoria to trolley passengers shuttling and sightseeing along the waterfront. When he started conducting, the gig felt like his early radio broadcasts: “It’s like, ‘Damn, this is fun!’” he said.

“The people that I’ve met that work on the trolley — these people love that thing. I mean, it’s like their kid. They are so proud of it,” he said.

Aboard the trolley, “you meet the most interesting people, and you meet a lot of locals,” he said. “The really fun days are the cruise ship days, because you’ve got people from all over the world coming in here.”

“To me, it’s like a smorgasbord of all kinds of great people to talk to,” he added.

Since he was young, Miller — who once considered a career teaching English literature — has loved entertaining and informing people.

“It’s really cool when people say to you, whether you’re on the radio or on the trolley, ‘I did not know that,’” he said. “I love that, when I can tell you something you didn’t know.”

Miller got into radio broadcasting back when many people considered radio work not a “real job.” In fact, the father of a girl he was interested in wouldn’t let his daughter date Miller because the man considered radio a disreputable profession.

But radio involves a lot of heavy lifting, Miller said: “You’re just using your mind and not your arms.”

“It’s a lot of work,” he said, “and the hardest thing to do in this business is go in, and do what you do, when somebody just died, you had a big fight with your wife, your dog died, you got a bill that came that you didn’t expect, you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job.

“But you have to go in there and perform the same way every day,” he said. “And if you don’t think that’s difficult, try it. That’s what separates the pros from the amateurs.”

Miller’s career began back when disc jockeys actually jockeyed discs — or, in Miller’s case, 45s.

Decades ago, his show prep involved buying the early morning print editions of prominent newspapers and going into the studio with clippings and notes. The arrival of the Internet broadened the information he talked about on the air.

Miller’s shows were nonpartisan — and, for the most part, apolitical — but they occasionally had a satiric edge. When Oregon’s U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley was caught lying about his military service, for example, Miller wrote a scathing parody song about the scandal.

“If you listened to my show and you figured out my politics, good for you. But I didn’t rant and rave about it,” he said. “People figured me out pretty quick, but I didn’t go on and on. And I don’t think if you disagree with me you’re stupid; I think you disagree with me. And I get that; that’s how the world works. And I don’t like these liberal and conservative labels. I never did — it’s too easy.”

Miller pulled some memorable on-air stunts, such as phoning Idi Amin, the mass-murdering former president of Uganda whose number Miller somehow got a hold of. “He talked to me long enough to tell me he wasn’t going to talk to me,” Miller said.

One time, Miller called the Eiffel Tower and asked for the recipe for French dressing.

He flew with the Blue Angels, and rode with Australian racing driver Geoff Brabham. He’s hosted his show from Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and called in reports from around the globe.

“God has just blessed me and my family through this goofy business to the point where I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it,” he said.

And a person who feels blessed needs to give something back, according to Miller, who said he likes to use his “big mouth” to do good in the world.

When he learned that low-income parents in Oregon and southwest Washington couldn’t afford eyeglasses or hearing aids for their children, Miller and KEX crew founded a nonprofit charity — now called the KEX Kids Fund — to raise money for the cause.

“You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen a kid that never heard before put on a set of hearing aids and hear their mom for the first time,” he said.

For the effort, Miller received an award in 1988 from President Ronald Reagan in the White House Rose Garden. “That was a huge moment for me,” he said. “It was like the icing on the cake.”

Miller, 65, finds it funny that he ended up in Astoria, because his life began in Ironton, Ohio — a little town with enormous historical significance that lies on a major river.

He and his wife, Shirley, bought a house in town about 15 years ago, and visited on weekends and holidays. Moving to Astoria from Beaverton, he said, was the best decision they ever made, “other than getting married.”

“We love it over here,” he said, “and I love it even more now that I live here, and that’s the truth.”

— Erick Bengel