I just wanted to pay respect to a local lady who wasn’t afraid to play West Coast music and unsigned artists that were hungry to be heard. You’ll be missed Break-A-Dawn =(
MAITLAND, Fla. — Orlando radio listeners are mourning the loss of a local morning show personality.
Complications from pregnancy killed Dawn Blackstone Fleming Wednesday morning, who used the on-air name “Break-A-Dawn,” WESH NewsChannel 2 reported.
She was a newlywed and a new mom.
Break-A-Dawn was part of the “Wake-Up Posse” on the morning drive at 102 JAMZ. She handled community and entertainment news for the hip-hop station and used her talents to help dozens of charities in Central Florida.
Earnest James, the senior vice president at 102 JAMZ, said everyone at the station feels they’ve just lost a family member. Fleming was more than an on-air talent: She was the station’s leader in community outreach and a sparkplug personality with a warm heart who will be sadly missed.
She was newly married and set to deliver her first child when doctors told her she was having trouble with dangerously high blood pressure. She went off the air and into the hospital last month. She delivered her new daughter just before Thanksgiving, but then lapsed into a coma.
“The birth of her child is what she gave her life for. So, it’s important that I do my part to recognize Dawn as the heroine that she was,” James said.
Just 31 years old, Fleming lost her battle Wednesday morning. Her co-workers are being offered grief counseling, and sympathy cards are likely to pour into the station, joining the dozens of thank-you notes and awards from the charitable organizations that benefited from Break-A-Dawn’s weekly broadcasts that focused on people most in need.
Karen Yeager, who runs Place of Comfort in Longwood, said she’ll remember Fleming not just for her radio broadcasts that helped her agency collect food and toys, but for her personal commitment to help struggling kids and families.
“She truly had the heart of a volunteer. How else to be remembered? She really has a legacy,” she said.
On her station Web site’s bio page, Break-A-Dawn wrote: “We are not promised tomorrow.”
Her co-workers now understand that painful truth.
“Her way would have been to live fully for today,” James said.
102 JAMZ has been flooded with calls about Fleming. Funeral arrangements are being made as her family struggles to cope. Station management said at least one of the services being planned will be open to the public.
One ray of light in all of this: Her new daughter, born premature, appears to be healthy and doing well.
