VICTORIA -- Radio personality Horace Lee Logan, who started the Louisiana Hayride, died Sunday at a hospital in Victoria at the age of 86.
Logan coined the phrase, "Elvis has left the building."
His wife, Linda, said he died of pancreatitis and acute respiratory distress syndrome.
Logan began in radio in 1932 at the age of 16, after winning a contest to become an announcer on Shreveport station KWKH.
In 1948, he began producing the Louisiana Hayride, a country music show performed before a live KWKH audience in Shreveport's Municipal Auditorium.
Logan left the show in 1958, and the Louisiana Hayride survived for only two years thereafter.
In the ten years of the Louisiana Hayride under Logan's direction, he introduced a number of country music's top names to the nation.
Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams were among the entertainers who got their first big break on the Louisiana Hayride.
In 1956, trying to quiet a frenzied audience after a Presley performance on the Louisiana Hayride, Logan announced, "Elvis has left the building."
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