Coble’s tenure at KGMB saw top ratings, zany antics

Last week, I talked to Linda Coble about how her television news career began. This week, we’ll look at her time at KGMB, where she worked with some of Hawaii’s finest journalists.

In 1972, Cec Heftel hired Coble to join KGMB’s news team with Bob Sevey, Tim Tindall, Bob Jones and Joe Moore on sports. "Cec knew the value of everyone in that room and paid them accordingly. He gave main anchors ratings points as an incentive. He understood that to keep a team together was important. Cec Heftel cared about me. He knew I would never let him down."

"Bob Sevey was our mentor, our guru, our quality control expert," Coble said. "Sevey was a true role model for all of us. We learned to cop to our mistakes, report fairly and objectively, and keep our personal biases out of our stories."

"Joe Moore was notorious for trying to scare me. One time there was a circus in town. He had the trainer bring an 8-foot-tall bear into the newsroom in chains while I was on the air. It came up behind me, and even lurched for me! Joe loved it!"

One of Moore’s best on-air tricks was his Evel Knievel impersonation, Coble says. Knievel was a motorcycle daredevil. "Joe found a tricycle and fog maker amongst some props from the ‘Checkers & Pogo’ show. He rode the tricycle from the sports desk over a gap to the anchor desk, a la Evel Knievel, and crashed off-camera. A second later, he appeared wearing a burned T-shirt. It was hilarious. He must have spent all day preparing for it."

"There was always something funny going on," Coble continues. "People loved it. That’s why they tuned in. Some viewers would go to sleep at 9 p.m. but set their clocks for 10 p.m. to catch the news.

"They were guaranteed an accurate, timely news.

"However, after sports, around 10:20, we could do whatever we wanted to do. That’s when we’d let our hair down and have some fun. A lot of people tuned in just to see what we would do at the end of the show.

"We killed back then. We had a 60 share. That’s three times what anybody has now. It was huge."

"Bob Jones would occasionally strip down during the newscast just to unravel me. He would be sitting there in the anchor chair, taking his pants off, wearing just boxer shorts below the waist, while the camera was on someone else. The audience couldn’t see it. I had to keep a straight face. It wasn’t easy."

When her stepfather died in 1981, Linda moved back to Oregon to live with her mom, landing a job as the first female co-anchor at KOIN-TV. "There was a party for January birthdays at the station and Kirk Matthews and I learned we were both born on the same day, same year — Jan. 10, 1947."

Coble returned to Hawaii in 1983 with Matthews, who got a job at KGMB as the night beat reporter. They married in 1984 and because Coble was more well-known, many called Matthews Mr. Linda Coble.

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Bob Sigall looks through his collection of Hawaii photos to tell stories of Hawaii people, places and organizations each Friday. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.