Dick Nourse Death – Dick Nourse, who passed away recently, was the chief anchor at KSL-TV for 43 years, where he provided the news to generations of Utah residents. On Thursday, KSL shared the news of Nourse’s passing with its readers. He was 83. There was no indication of the reason of death; nevertheless, the station stated that Nourse had survived cancer three separate times. After making his debut on a newscast for the first time at KSL-Channel 5 in 1964, he finally called it quits in 2007.
Nourse parked on Social Hall Avenue in Salt Lake City in 1964 after driving there from Colorado in “a brand-new ’63 Corvair,” as he related to co-anchor Bruce Lindsay during a retirement tribute on KSL in 2007. At the time, all three of Salt Lake City’s television stations had their offices on Social Hall Avenue.
It was at KUTV-Channel 2 where Nourse made his initial job application. According to what he stated, they told him, “you’re a greenhorn. Please visit us again in five years. The following day, he went to what was then known as KCPX and is now known as KTVX-Channel 4, and received the same response. After a few days, he went to KSL, where they offered him an audition and then, after a few more days, they offered him a position.
According to KSL, within a year of Nourse’s debut at KSL, he built a team that would go on to become one of the longest-running anchor teams in the history of broadcasting in Utah. He recruited weatherman Bob Welti and sportscaster Paul James from Channel 4, both of whom had previously worked for that station.
Welti started his career in television in 1948 at the pioneering KDYL-TV, which is now known as KTVX. This station was Salt Lake City’s first television station. In the 1960s, KSL hired him and James away to work with Nourse, and the three of them represented KSL’s on-air personality for decades as the station went to the top of the market. James left KSL in the 1980s.
From 1979 to 1991, Nourse served alongside a co-anchor, rotating between Lindsey and Shelley Thomas in the job. James and Welti both retired in 1991, marking the end of the trio’s tenure together in the newsroom.
After Chris Clark from WTVF in Nashville departed earlier that year after 41 years, Beth King from the national office of the Society of Professional Journalists stated that she believed Nourse could have held the record for the longest tenure of any local news anchor. Nourse’s retirement occurred in the same year as Clark’s.
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