In honor of "the real" Ron Steele

KWWL anchor leaving Waterloo TV station after almost 51 years

Ron Steele (Pat Kinney photo)...

WATERLOO — In honor of KWWL news anchor Ron Steele's announced departure from the station after 51 years, I thought I'd re-post my "View From the Cedar Valley" column on my interview with him last year on his 50th anniversary at the station. It also ran in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier at that time and on the Iowa Capital Dispatch webpage.

You can read that column at the link here.

However I couldn’t let Ron “go gently into that good night” and just re-post this without some personal observations — about a guy we at the Courier competed against for decades, and respected.

Ron announced to viewers last night (Feb. 11): "I have come to an agreement with and accepted an offer from KWWL which will end my career here on Thursday, Feb. 27.

"KWWL has been very generous to me and my family over the years. They have given me some amazing opportunities to go around the world and cover news, weather and sports for these five decades, and I will be forever grateful," Steele said. "I have a lot to be thankful for."

His announced departure in two weeks may have seemed rather abrupt to some viewers, considering the way the station had ballyhooed his previous anniversaries there with congratulatory promotional ads. But it comes less than a month after KWWL owner Allen Media Group, after protests from viewers and advertisers, backed away from a plan to lay off its local meteorologists at all its stations, including KWWL, and have local weather done by The Weather Channel, another Allen holding, out of its facilities in Atlanta. Last spring, Allen laid off 300 employees companywide, or 12 percent of its work force, and continued some layoffs last fall, according to trade websites and media reports.

Ron started at KWWL in 1974 when I was junior at Waterloo Columbus High School. He became Channel 7 news anchor my senior year at Iowa State in early 1979 and I also did a Courier story on his 40th anniversary at KWWL in 2014 and on his valiant recovery from a heart attack in 2017.

So I guess I literally grew up (and old) following his career.

I think the first time I saw Ron in person was when he was covering a Waterloo Royals minor league baseball game at Municipal (now Riverfront) Stadium when I was in high school. Ironically, I had just taken a high school class in radio and television and one of our big assignments was to write a whole programming and marketing plan for the hypothetical airing of a Waterloo East - Waterloo Columbus high school boys basketball game by KWWL. So, as a class exercise, I was writing a promo ad for Ron Steele for that game, including script and camera positioning. I got a decent grade so I guess it was practical.

When I worked at Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream Parlor on University Avenue in Waterloo in the mid-1970s during high school and my first years of college at the University of Northern Iowa, a group of us would convene Monday nights at Davie Lee's Second Base Showroom in downtown Cedar Falls. Davie Lee had a talent contest with the winner receiving a trip to Hollywood to audition to be on NBC's "The Gong Show" with Chuck Barris. Ron was one of the panel of celebrity judges.

Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier staff photographer Courtney Collins couldn’t help taking this photo of me, at left, interviewing KWWL news anchor Ron Steele at the KWWL anchor desk on his 40th anniversary at the station in 2014.

But, years later, when I was at the Courier and Ron was still doing his thing at KWWL, we also covered a couple of tough stories together -- including some where some folks in authority positions who, under some pressure, may not necessarily have been pleased with us doing our jobs. Ron handled it like the pro he always has been.

He also put himself at risk a few times. I remember watching one story where he was out at a crime-ridden Waterloo apartment complex and someone smashed a bottle across the open window of his car; he ducked as the shattered glass sprayed inside. That took a little bit of courage. Ron wasn’t glued to his anchor desk; he chased down stories with the best of them.

A lot of folks will remember his "Iowa's Child" segments with hard-to-place adoptive kids. He would frequently be a guest speaker on the subject, spreading the word among civic organizations. One can only imagine that had to take a little bit of emotional fortitude as well.

He also helped me a lot in doing justice in a feature story on the life and career of highly respected WMT/KWWL news director and Wartburg College professor Grant Price on his passing. Grant was an old-school journalist who mentored a whole generation of them, including Ron.

I remember when Ron did the afternoon news on old KWWL radio (1330 AM) when I was still in school and a couple of the deejays -- like "Boogie Brother" Brian Lange -- introduced him as "the real Ron Steele."

Well, you know what? It has been real, Ron. Thanks.

Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. If you believe in their work subscribe to this column or any of them with a paid subscription.

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