Wednesday, December 6th 2017
Bruce King (File photo)
KOMO news anchor Eric Johnson, who replaced King after his retirement, said at the time that King was an unfailingly upbeat personality.
“Everything you see on TV, it’s not an act,” says Johnson. “He doesn’t go out there and flip on a switch and become Bruce King. It’s the way the guy is.”
Elisa Jaffe, who has worked as a journalist at KOMO-TV and KOMO Newsradio for 30 years, remembers King as someone who energized everyone around him.
“Bruce was a giant in the business,” says Jaffe. “He was always so happy, beaming, full of energy – and it was contagious.”
King began his television career in 1960 at KEZI-TV in Eugene, Ore.
After a five-year stay at KEZI and brief stint at KNTV in San Jose, he then became a producer/reporter for KABC in Los Angeles in 1966. He covered the first Super Bowl, played at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, for KABC.
He became KOMO’s sports director in 1968 and stayed until 1980, when he was hired to fill the same role at New York’s WABC. The next year he was back at KOMO-TV.
Johnson joined the station in 1993 and found King to be “lovely, graceful and decent.”
King, he said, “was from that era where they had stylistic flourishes on the set.”
He remembered how he could dramatically introduce the play of the night.
Longtime KOMO reporter Connie Thompson said King was “a fun-loving ray of sunshine, always.”
“He was about doing what he loved and about doing it well,” she said. “But he was also about loving life and joy.”
King won two local Emmy Awards during his career and was named state sportscaster of the year four times.
RIP Mr. King.
Growing up in the Greater Vancouver area and receiving US network channels, you were on the tube for many years doing Seattle area sports, my condolences to the King family.
When I was living/growing up in East Vancouver “expect no mercy”, me and many other British Columbians could not find a more formidable, reliable, tv news line-up than Dan Lewis, Kathi Goertzen, Bruce King, and Steve Pool ! What a powerhouse of genuine, awesome talent !
Only the cast-up of Tony Parsons, Norm Graumann, and Bernie Pascal could compare to KOMO and BCTV, back then, often did give the yanks a run for their money, isn’t it true !
RIP Mr. King!
Like Les H and don’t care I remember Bruce King very well!
Watched him quite faithfully for years and always found him to be professional, well informed, insightful and very very upbeat and positive.
I am quite sure that there were many On Air types at KOMO that learned a lot from King over his many years there!
Far too many well known and well respected people Of note passing away as of late. I suppose it will not get any better any time soon.