Friend Douglas Terpstra, 82 of La Crosse passed away Saturday, March 18, 2023 at Bethany Riverside Transitional Care. He was born May 23, 1940, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. His paternal grandfather Owner Terpstra served many years on the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors; his maternal grandfather Evan Solberg was with the State Bank of Holmen. His later step-father John Thomas served as Chairman of the County Board.

At the time of his birth, Doug’s parents Friend G. and Gretchen Solberg Terpstra were living in South Dakota, and Doug spent childhood years at Armour and Marion, SD. Doug ever retained an abiding love for his small-town roots on the Great Plains.

A brother, Donald E. Terpstra, was born in 1947, and the family moved in 1952 to West Salem, WI, where they resided in the home that later became the Hamlin Garland National Historic Landmark. Doug attended West Salem schools. As a teen enthralled by Rock & Roll, Doug was invited by La Crosse area radio legend Lindy Shannon to appear on WKBH as the region’s “first teen disc jockey.” After graduating from WSHS in 1958, Doug attended the Brown Institute of Broadcasting in Minneapolis, beginning his own 30-year career in radio. He was popularly known on-air as “Doug Friend.” A naturally talented artist and musician, Doug also studied theater at Pasadena Playhouse in California. He served in the US Army, and was on duty at Key West during the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Doug returned to La Crosse to work at WLCX Radio in the 1960s, and later moved on to broadcasting jobs in Rapid City and Sioux Falls, SD, where he was a familiar personality. By the 1980s he had relocated to McAllen, TX, broadcasting to the Rio Grande Valley during the boom in Country Western music. Doug subsequently changed careers to work in hotel hospitality. He was bar manager at the Four Seasons, and manager of the Continental VIP lounge at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, where he hosted the rich and famous, and collected stories he would retell many times. He again returned to La Crosse to work at the Radisson Hotel until his retirement.

Doug’s father Friend Terpstra died in West Salem in 1958, and his mother Gretchen Solberg Terpstra Thomas died in La Crosse in 1989. A sister died at birth in South Dakota in 1937.

Doug is survived by his brother and sister-in-law Don and Linda Terpstra of Santa Fe, NM, by several beloved Terpstra and Solberg family cousins, and by lifelong family friends.

Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.dickinsonfuneralhomes.com