Fargo's Jack Sand, who worked his magic on screen and off, dies at 82

Jack Sand's magic didn't end when the cameras stopped rolling.

The longtime weekend weatherman at WDAY-TV in Fargo, known for incorporating magic tricks into the forecast, would pack coins and scarves when he was getting dressed in the morning, always ready to entertain.

He would delight strangers with sleight of hand, just because. He would perform magic for kindergartners as a favor for a neighbor. His daughters would become his assistants, his grandchildren protégés — in magic as in life.

"He was just a genuine person, and I think a lot of people thought it was a persona, but once you met him you realized that's who he really was," said his daughter, Melissa Fabian. "He was a kind, good man."

Sand died Jan. 14 from Alzheimer's disease. He was 82.

A generation of viewers in the Red River Valley and beyond would come to know Sand for the well-loved "Santa's Toyland" TV special, which he hosted for 16 years.

"I loved doing the show," Sand wrote on a "Santa's Toyland" Facebook page in 2018. "So much fun meeting people today who tell me they were on the show and watched at home!"

Even on his many trips abroad over the years, "People would come up and say, 'Aren't you Jack Sand?' " said his wife, Rochelle.

John "Jack" Bernard Sand was born Feb. 9, 1939, to Albert and Minnie Sand in Grand Forks, N.D. The family later moved to Minneapolis, where Sand graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1957.

He attended the University of Minnesota before finishing his studies at the Brown Institute of Broadcasting.

After a stint in radio, Sand joined WDAY, which reaches a large swath of eastern North Dakota and more than a dozen northwest Minnesota counties, in 1966. Hired as an advertising copywriter, he was quickly recruited for the weekend weather, a role he held for 25 years even as he moved into ad sales on weekdays.

Over the years, Sand would become the advertising face and voice of several local companies, including Country Hearth Bread and the Muscatell car dealership, and hosted his own magic show for a time.

"I remember people always coming up to us … and feeling like they knew my dad, because he was in their living rooms every night," Fabian said.

His weather-grading toy duck, Gwendolyn, also won many fans and was a regular part of the magic acts he performed in the community.

After retiring in 2003, Sand performed a magic show at Jasper's Theater in Park Rapids, Minn., for 14 seasons.

"At the front door you'd find him greeting with a smile and joke," Kathie Brekke, the theater's director and a longtime friend of Sand, wrote in a tribute. "Reconnecting with folks from everywhere that felt like they knew him and he reciprocated with the same enthusiasm even when he didn't know them."

He also served on the board for the Fargo New Life Center, a homeless shelter and rescue mission, for 30 years.

"He wasn't flashy about it, but he did a lot for the community behind the scenes," Fabian said.

Brekke wrote: "A man of character, poise, graciousness, principle, faith, he was and will always be a model of what it is to be a good man in this world."

Along with his wife of 62 years and daughter Melissa of Mason City, Iowa, Sand is survived by daughter Kimberly Ferguson of Louisville, Colo., six grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life is set for Monday at Triumph Lutheran Brethren Church in Moorhead, Minn.