Tag Archives: KOMO TV

ONE OF THE TRULY GREATS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING

It was the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was definitely a busy holiday weekend, but we managed to wedge-in a lunch with some friends at Ray’s Boathouse. We won the lunch lotto as we arrived on a cold, but sun-drenched November day to a 10-minute wait and seats overlooking the way, as we celebrated living here in the Pacific Northwest.

Our conversations went all over the place. From summer vacations, to kids, to the big event coming up one week from that day: Julebord, an annual Christmas dinner at the Seattle Golf Club which yours truly emcees every year.

While I’ve got a lot of holiday traditions (crafting the family Christmas card, writing the annual family letter, putting together another Ho Ho Brother holiday collection, writing a parody song for sing Alana Baxter and then recording it and turning it into a video), my duties at Julebord are a hoot. I start out the event with a monologue, then break out into some kind of silly song, and then navigate our way through speeches, performances and door prizes.

With Julebord taking place at the Seattle Golf Club, just up the road from our house, I dropped in some S.G.C. trivia–that former KOMO TV weather guy Steve Pool was the club’s very first black member. (he had told me that once)

A few moments later, I was taking a quick peek at my Facebook feed on my phone, and what do you know: a picture of Steve Pool came up. Seriously, less than a minute after I had said his name out loud, there he was.

Dear Friends,

I am here to share the sad news that my dear husband, my love, has passed away from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He fought this terrible disease privately for several years, and with every ounce of his being. He told me multiple times to “never count me out” and we never did. This past week it became too much and he passed away peacefully. We are so blessed to have had him in our lives. He was an extraordinary man, husband, father and good friend to many. Please know that he truly loved his job and this community and felt so privileged to be a part of your lives. You were all so good to him and thereby good to us. Our hearts are irretrievably broken. Please say a prayer for him and our family.

Wait. What?

Not a chance. Must be some sick hoax.

But as I searched Facebook, it was spreading like wildfire. Steve Pool had passed away from early onset Alzheimer’s at the young age of 70. That age gets younger the older you get. The KOMO news report confirmed it.

What made this so hard to process was that it was just four short Novembers ago that Steve announced his retirement. He had battled through prostate cancer and my thinking was, after that, he embraced the fact that life is just too darn short and it would be smart for him to spend more time with his family.

Now, to be clear, Steve and I were not best friends. While we were co-workers and acquaintances, but whenever you had a chance to talk with Steve, he made you feel like his best friend. Over a four-year period, we were both co-workers in the KOMO broadcasting empire. He was down the hall in TV, I was in radio, as Larry Nelson’s morning show producer.

To be honest, when Steve first took over the weather duties at KOMO, I was a bit resentful towards him. After all, he was brought in after the brass upstairs forced out that crazy Ray Ramsey guy. Ray and I had become good friends due to our mutual interest of insane humor.

But you can’t help but just like Steve, one of the nicest, kindest people you would have ever met.

During my days at KOMO radio, I had an indirect connection with him. He had one of those TV magazine shows called “Frontrunners” and when Ruth Warrick from “All My Children” came into the building for interviews, since I was such a HUGE AMC fan at the time, they did a segment on me rushing home each day to catch the show, and then recorded me interviewing Ruth.

However, it’s interesting to note that Steve and I were both Communications Majors at the University of Washington at the same time, but our paths never crossed. I graduated three months before him. Back then, the common thought for communications majors, you really had two choices–stick around in a major market, starting at the bottom and climb your way up or head to a smaller market where you would be doing everything, gain some experience and then return to the market of your choice. I headed to Yakima, Steve got on at KOMO and climbed quickly.

Part of what is inspiring this blog today is that we’re getting ready for the 115th annual Apple Cup football game between the University of Washington and Washington State University. Flash forward to my days at KLSY, where we started a very fun tradition. Around this time of year, we would play an “Apple Cup Edition” of our Battle of the Sexes game in the morning show, with special guests: Kathi “Cougar” Goertzen versus Steve “Husky” Pool. Here’s one of those battles I dug up.

As you can hear, they were so much fun and there was always a bet. This is us in the KOMO garage where my KLSY morning show co-host Bruce Murdock, representing the Cougars, had to wash Steve Pool’s car. (since the Huskies won)

Steve only made it to 70, but he had the accomplishments of someone who was 170. A Seattle weather guy for 40 years, for a while the go-to fill-in guy on “Good Morning, America.” Emcee, singer, goofball and a guy that loved to laugh. A complete pro.

Think about where you were and what you were doing back in November of 2019, just four short years ago. It was right before the pandemic that nobody saw coming, but it was when Steve decided to hang up his barometer and retire.

I’m getting that Steve really didn’t pay much attention to his Facebook page. The posts are rare and scattered and, of course, tapered off in recent years.

That week when I heard he was retiring, I wanted to interview him before his final show. He hadn’t responded to my Facebook requests, so I went through the proper channels at KOMO and requested an interview. The second he got the message, he contacted me and we set it up. I believe I caught him on the Thursday night before his final show and he made it sound like two old friends getting together to chat.

Here’s the interview.

And almost four years later, to the day, he was gone.

I sent him a note following our chat to say thanks for the time and for all the kind things he had to say about me.

Those were very kind words about me tonight, sir. Around the time we lost Kathi, I dug out some of those “Battle of the Sexes” we did with you two around Apple Cup time. Great seeing you again. Congrats on your success and for staying such a great guy. You guys have a special family down there. Tim

He never responded. I hope he saw it.

Since it ’tis the season and his family will be going through their first Christmas without him, I thought I’d offer up this little piece Steve put together for the holiday season back in 1984.

Rest well, Steve. You really, REALLY deserve it. But know, you are missed.

Yes, one of the truly greats has left the building.

Tim Hunter

 

Saying Goodbye To The Pool Guy

One of the kindest, nicest, most sincere people ever to make a career out of broadcasting, Steve Pool, has retired. There have been specials and interviews and articles written this past week and from all that, you would think Mother Teresa had been at KOMO-TV all these years. Well, I never knew Mother Teresa, but I did get to know Steve and all this praise is well-deserved. Frankly, everybody got to know Steve.

Because the guy that was doing the weather forecasts all those years with modest confidence was exactly who you would have met if you bumped into him on the street.  How long have I known Steve?

I have to drag you back to the early 1980’s, when I was hired to come over the mountains from my radio life in Yakima and become Larry Nelson’s producer on KOMO radio. That was back in the days when KOMO radio and TV blurred together, although when you work the 4am-noon shift, you would miss a lot of those TV folks who didn’t wander in until the afternoon because they would be there until almost midnight.

Every morning on the Larry Nelson morning show, Steve’s predecessor, Ray Ramsey, would check in and do the forecast from his home studio. The two of them created some legendary radio and had so much fun, it would drive management upstairs crazy.  They’d get gonged for having too much fun, and then slowly work the silliness back in. Ray was a quick-witted silver fox, who had been known as ‘Hay Head Ray’ back in his Spokane radio days. Somehow, he had made the transition from radio to television and often wore extremely loud plaid sports coats to work which I’m sure had viewers adjusting the color on their TV sets.

In time, management became less fond of Ray and as you’ve seen in local news around here in 2019, it was time to move on to the next generation. Enter Steve Pool. He wasn’t Ray and I’ll be honest, at first I was a bit resentful. But there was no way I could watch Steve’s performance and hold him accountable. He simply inherited the position. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. And Steve was good.

In time, I found myself over at KLSY and Steve Pool was our “TV weather guy”.  That relationship lasted several years, enough that we could arrange Steve “the Husky” Pool playing against Kathi “The Coug” Goertzen for several years. Each edition was a blast. They replicated my relationship with several really good Coug friends where we’d flip each other flack, but in the end, it was just a game. The really drunk fans from each side take it way too seriously.

I even had the fortune of going down to Los Angeles once to represent Seattle radio as part of a charity “Family Feud”, with host Ray Combs emceeing a matchup between Seattle radio folks and the KOMO-TV news team.

 

Truth is, Steve and I were never best friends. But he was a solid friend. The kind, when you saw them after several years, it was like time had never passed. I’ve noticed that about me. I don’t really have any good buddies or friends, aside from my wife. Probably, KRKO’s “Maury the Movie Guy” would come close, but we only see each other once a week and we spend most of our time together doing a podcast. But when you’re one of my friends, there is no time involved. I could see you a week ago or five years ago, but the next time we connect, we just pick up where we left off. And if that is the definition of a friend, Steve Pool definitely falls into that category.

He’s a Facebook friend (as probably most of you reading this are) but I didn’t want to play that to get an interview with him before he retired. I did reach out to Dan Lewis last week–we connected over the years and after he retired–but I just wanted to chat with Steve if only he was up for it. So, I went through the proper channels and emailed the KOMO press relations office, just as anyone else would seeking an interview.

Monday morning, my phone rang and, when I didn’t recognize the number, I just let it go to voicemail. Once it had reached that mark, I listened. It was Steve, saying, “Yes, let’s do this thing.”  I called him back and this is the interview I had with him, which I chopped into bits for my KRKO morning show. (Hey, it’s a morning music show–3 minutes max and I have to be done)  However, if you’d like to hear our entire conversation, it’s right here.

It’s like when Frederick & Nelson closed, or Pay ‘n Pak went away, or when Stan Boreson left us, another chunk of the Seattle we all knew over the past 40 years faded away just a little bit more. Sure, we could be all sad about it, but I choose to remember all those great times, including ones I didn’t even bring up in this little roundup of memories. A really good guy just beat cancer, which reminded him of just how precious life is, and he decided to make every day count.

Which is a reminder that we should all be doing that, whether we’re retired or not.

Steve Pool, you’ve enjoyed a career well-lived. Now, let’s focus on that real-life thing.

Congratulations on the promotion.

Tim Hunter

A Day of Sadness

I climbed in the car and began my short commute to work. It was a Tuesday, a day I usually swing by Starbucks and pick up something, but this morning I was running late.
As the car started, the reporter from KIRO was talking about Fisher Plaza. That was odd. It turned out that the channel 4 helicopter had crashed on Broad Street. Several cars passing by caught fire from the jet fuel that spilled, but the two occupants of the helicopter were dead.
Then I remembered that Dan Strothman worked there as a cameraman. Could he have been one of the two people on board?
Dan is the son of a college buddy, Bill Strothman, who wandered around the University of Washington in the mid-1970s along with me and the other Communications Majors.
Some of us concentrated on journalism, others on Radio & TV. Bill’s path and mine collided in the television side of things, back in the days when Channel 9 was on campus and once a week, students would produce a magazine-style show called, “Speakout!”
I probably should remember more details about the TV experience, but what I do recall are those Happy Hours after a shoot at the Pitcher House over on the Ave, with $1 pitchers. The perfect way to wrap up a Friday and head off into the weekend. The Speakout crew was made up of some very talented and determined folks who still run around Seattle today, including Bill and his girlfriend, eventually wife, Nora.
While our paths scattered and after graduation, I headed over to Yakima to play radio, Bill and his camera did quite well and became the go-to guy at KOMO TV. After a few decades of excellence, he decided to venture off and do his own thing as a freelance photographer. I had just exchanged a couple of emails with him a few months ago, hoping that some day we could work on a project together again.
To demonstrate that photographic skills can run in the family, Bill & Nora’s kid, Dan, grew up and followed his dad’s footsteps. There was even a time when Bill was still at KOMO, that Dan found himself working at a TV station in Montana, driving around the old KOMO 4 news truck that had been sold to that station.
Eventually, Dan found himself at his dad’s old stomping grounds, continuing the Strothman legacy. That’s why my heart sank when I first heard about the accident. I skipped the Starbucks run so I could get to work, check on Facebook and see if Dan had posted anything lately.
His Facebook page was a steady stream of “I’m so sorry” and “Our best to the KOMO family” and so I was relieved.  He was alive.  Dan was OK.
A short time later, I found out it was Bill on board.  Apparently, doing a little freelance work as he had hundreds of times before.  The regular KOMO chopper was in the shop, so they had a loaner from Boston.
Just like that. Here. Gone. No chance for a goodbye, other than the usual “See you tonight” as you head out the door.
Even though those days at the UW were 40 years ago, that special group of friends has remained in touch over the years. For a while, I attended Bothell First Lutheran Church with the Strothmans and other college friends, the Ensigns.
The last time I saw Bill? The last time I really had a chance to sit and chat would have been a summer barbecue at my new Bothell House in 2007. It was a perfect day and there were my college friends, just hanging out. The hair was a little grayer, there were more “character lines”, but it was that old gang of mine.
We should have had more of those get-togethers we always meant to organize. The longer you’re around, the reminders become more and more frequent.
Bill Strothman was a pro, a compassionate, caring father and husband and one of the greatest guys you’d ever have the chance to meet. You’ll hear that a lot over the next couple of days.  Anyone who knew Bill had only the best to say about him.
He was also a man of faith and I know that right now he’s experiencing his reward for a life well-lived. I look forward to the day I’ll see him again. Then maybe we’ll finally get around to working on that project together.
God’s peace to his wife Nora, and his kids, Dan and Heidi.

Tim Hunter

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