Beloved Anchor Dies At 82: Reports

GRASS VALLEY, CA — Legendary KTVU anchor Dennis Richmond, who served for decades as the calm deliverer of Bay Area news, died Wednesday at 82, according to reports. No official cause of death was given, though he was recently hospitalized for a heart attack and fall, according to KTVU.

Richmond grew up in Ohio, and served in the 82nd Airborne division and graduated from the Columbia Journalism School, according to reports. He began as a part-time clerk typist at KTVU in 1968, and worked his way up the ranks until he became a full-time anchor of the Ten O’Clock News in 1976. He was noted for being one of the first Black anchors of a major news station in the country. Over the next three decades, he became known both for his mustache and for his even-keeled, detailed reporting of some of the Bay Area’s most momentous occasions.

He covered the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, assassination of Supervisor Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone, the 1989 Loma Pieta earthquake, and the 1991 Oakland Hills firestorm. He got in the heart of the action - he once dangled from the 47th floor of a building to air a report, and another time, he rode in the Blue Angels as they did loop-de-loops over the San Francisco Bay.

Throughout it all, he maintained his trademark cool. “People are going to look at you for direction,” he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2010. “If you are excited and nervous, they are going to be excited and nervous. You have to be calm.”

He retired in 2008, and spent the rest of his years in rural Grass Valley with his family.

"Dennis was a strong presence in the KTVU newsroom for decades, guiding the team and setting high standards for himself and his colleagues in everything they did," KTVU General Manager Mellynda Hartel said. "His impact is still felt in the KTVU newsroom today."