Samuelson was born on a dairy farm near
Ontario, Wisconsin, on March 31, 1934. 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 and left him unable to walk for a substantial part of his adolescence. In May 1960, one of Samuelson's first assignments for WGN was to
emcee the
National Barn Dance, a long running program that WGN had just acquired when
WLS radio discontinued its association with the
Prairie Farmer magazine. WLS had converted to "The Station With Personality" and started playing
rock 'n' roll. Three years into his tenure at WGN, Samuelson was the staffer who read the news of the
John F. Kennedy assassination. His career led him to have dinner at the White House and travel to 43 countries, including
Cuba, where he shook hands with
Fidel Castro,
Moscow where he met with
Mikhail Gorbachev, and England to broadcast live from the
Royal Agricultural Show. He traveled with the Secretary of Agriculture and the Prime Minister of India to see the
Taj Mahal. 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, via
first-run syndication. In 2004,
Dennis Hastert approached Samuelson about running for office against
Barack Obama in the
2004 United States Senate election in Illinois; Samuelson, though he was eager to enter the race, was forced to decline due a throat infection that doctors and his wife warned would be fatal if he attempted the campaign. 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, second only to
Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network announcer
Vin Scully. In 2001, Samuelson was named a laureate of
The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and was awarded the
Order of Lincoln – the highest award bestowed by the
State of Illinois. The
University of Illinois presented Samuelson with the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. He was honored at the 2010 Wisconsin Corn/Soy Expo in
Wisconsin Dells. Samuelson received a custom-engraved Norwegian horse plaque to commemorate the occasion from presidents of the
Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the
Wisconsin Soybean Association, the
Wisconsin Agri-Services Association, and the
Wisconsin Pork Association. On December 9, 2010, the southwest corner of E. Illinois St. & N. Cityfront Plaza Dr. was named Orion Samuelson Way by the city of Chicago. In 2014, he was awarded the VERITAS award by
American Agri-Women (AAW). Samuelson served as a Board Member Emeritus for the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation (IALF) having previously served as chairman of the board. He also served on the Farm Foundation Bennett Round Table, and was a member of the board of the Agriculture Future of America, the board of Farm Safety 4 Just Kids, and the board of directors of the Foods Resource Bank, and was a trustee of the Cornerstone Foundation of
Lutheran Social Services of Illinois, and a member of the board of trustees of the National 4-H Council. On November 1, 2012, Samuelson published his autobiography ''You Can't Dream Big Enough'' via Bantry Bay Media. 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. The scholarship is presented to a college student seeking a career in agricultural communications. On September 23, 2020, Samuelson announced his retirement from WGN Radio. His final broadcast on WGN was the noon business report on December 31, 2020. He was succeeded at WGN by Steve Alexander and on
This Week in Agribusiness by Mike Pearson. ==Death==