SEATTLE — As the city sleeps, Dave Ross is already hard at work helping us make sense of the world around us.
"I get up at 3:57," said Ross. "The reason is, it takes me three minutes to get my footing out of bed and get to where I have a radio, and I want to hear the 4:00 a.m. news. So, I just get a quick summary of any breaking stories that may have happened."
He's been a friendly voice on the air for more than 50 years, 47 of them right here at Seattle's KIRO Newsradio.
"I lucked out," Ross said. "I picked a great place."
It's not just his job. It's his passion.
"I can't think of any other career where I would have visited the places or or met the people that this career allowed me to do," Ross said. "Covering the Middle East, covering 3 trips to Russia, China, Hong Kong."
Ross has filled in for broadcast legend Charles Osgood, dabbled in politics with a 2004 run for Congress, and gotten a chance to show off his creative side.
"Wrote my own songs and they played them on the air," he said.
But now, Dave Ross is stepping away from his beloved microphone. Much has changed since he first walked through the door.
"I feel like I am living in some futurescape," he said. "I can broadcast to the world with the cell phone in my pocket."
The technology changes, but facts are facts.
"Don't spread it if it's not true," he said.
Ross said he's always had one goal: "To explain things clearly. I used to write letters to Newsweek magazine back in the day. I'd read a story on foreign affairs. It's just a bunch of this leader, that leader. Tell me what it means."
Ross's final show will be broadcast on KIRO Newsradio Friday, December 19. His co-host, Colleen O'Brien, will also be leaving the station but intends to continue working in broadcasting.
How will Ross feel when he walks away from the job he's loved for more than a half century?
"Just appreciative to have been able to do this for so long," he said. "I feel fulfilled. I feel like I laid it all out there."
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