Thirty long years have passed since television journalist Bob Sevey bid his final aloha to island news viewers. With Sevey at the helm, KGMB News had become the most watched local television news station. This month we look back at Sevey and his career.

Sevey was born in 1927 in Minneapolis. He grew up not wanting to be a broadcaster, but rather a baseball player. “From the fourth or fifth grade on, I was determined to be a catcher,” said Sevey in a 1980 Honolulu Advertiser interview. Sevey eventually became a batboy for the visiting team at Nicollet Park, home to the minor league Minneapolis Millers.

“It was the acme of my baseball career,” he said.

Unfortunately, an injury sealed his future as a baseball player. “The owner of the Millers had agreed to give me a job when I finished high school. But with my arm gone, it was all over. I had to settle for broadcasting,” said Sevey.

After graduating from high school, Sevey served in the Army as a sergeant. He landed his first broadcasting gig in 1947 in Ames, Iowa, where he attended Iowa State University. Sevey later moved to California and was a sportscaster at a radio station in Santa Barbara while attending the University of California there.

In 1951 Sevey joined the scripts department at CBS in Hollywood earning just $37.50 per week. He later worked as both an announcer and director in Phoenix at KPHO.

While at KPHO Sevey met Art Sprinkle, father of longtime Honolulu broadcaster Gary Sprinkle. The elder Sprinkle was launching a new ABC television station, KULA, in 1954. Sevey joined Sprinkle in Honolulu as production manager.

“It was a warm April night,” said Sevey in a 1985 MidWeek interview. “It had been raining off and on, and the first thing I remember was the feeling of the soft air of Hawaii. I had never felt anything like it. It just sort of caresses you.”

Sevey departed for a job at Holst and Male, a local advertising agency, in 1957, and two years later joined KGMB. He worked a variety of jobs for the station, including news anchor, reporter and station manager. In July 1961 his first stint at KGMB ended abruptly. “Elizabeth Farrington, who owned the station, fired me and just about everybody else,” he said in a 1986 Honolulu Star-Bulletin interview. “So I went to Channel 4 and got into news full time.”

While at Channel 4, then known as KHVH, Sevey anchored the news with John Galbraith and morning news for Lucky Luck on radio. Sevey also worked as a producer of television programs for the station, most notably “The Lucky Luck Show,” which he hosted. After Galbraith’s departure in 1964, Sevey continued to anchor the news at KHVH until December 1965, when he joined the Fawcett McDermott ad agency.

Sevey rejoined KGMB after Cec Heftel purchased the station. His first day anchoring the news was July 4, 1966. KGMB began to surge to No. 1 one along with news anchors Tim Tindall and Bob Jones. People tuned in in record numbers to watch “Sevey at 6.” More than 90 percent of island television sets in use were tuned to KGMB during the moon landing in 1969. “That’s the highest rating I ever got, and probably the highest rating ever given to a TV station here,” said Sevey during the 1986 Star-Bulletin interview.

New acquisitions Jim Lathrop, Al Michaels, Bart Fredo, Ken Kashiwahara and Linda Coble were hired away from competing KHVH. These and others helped KGMB become the most dominant television news station in its market for well over a decade. No other station could catch KGMB in the ratings.

Sevey’s final newscast was at 6 p.m. on Friday, July 4, 1986. By then he had became one of the most respected journalists this state has ever had. Many called him the “Walter Cronkite of Hawaii.” CBS anchor Dan Rather, Honolulu Mayor Frank Fasi and Hawaii Gov. George Ariyoshi opened with taped messages expressing their gratitude and respect for Sevey.

As he signed off for the last time, Sevey recited the final lines of a 1940s radio theme song: “May your troubles all be small ones, and your fortunes 10 times 10; may the good Lord bless and keep you till we meet again.”

In 1989 Sevey moved to Washington state with his wife, Rosalie. He died of cancer in 2009 at the age of 81. He had lived in a remarkable time, he once said.

“The year I was born was when Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, and I’ve lived to cover man landing on the moon,” he said in a 1985 MidWeek interview. “I don’t think it happened that way for my grandparents.”

AJ McWhorter, a collector of film and videotape cataloging Hawaii’s TV history, has worked as a producer, writer and researcher for both local and national media. Email him at flashback@hawaii.rr.com.