50 Years in...
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KWWL (Waterloo) Anchor Ron Steele started working at the station in April 1974.
He was hired as the Sports Director but moved over to News Anchor.
50 years later, he’s still on the job. “The reason I’ve stayed, without question, is my family and the people I’ve worked with,” Steele said.
He said the station did not hire him right away. “I came down the station, sat in the lobby for a long time. They finally came out,” he said. “(Station executive) Jim Bradley came out to greet me, took my resume tape, and I never heard a thing for like, three months.
“Finally, Grant Price,” the longtime news director at KWWL and, previously, at WMT in Cedar Rapids, “a guy who was really instrumental in my success in broadcasting, he called me. He said, ‘We’re going to offer you the job.’ I was kind of upset I hadn’t heard from the for three months,” Steele recalled. “I said to my wife ‘I’m not gonna work for these people; they don’t tell you what’s going on; that’s tacky!’”
50 years ago, Ron Steele learned what we all know now, News Directors take forvert to call you back (if at all).
About staying in the small market for 5 decades, Steele has no regrets.
“Home is where you make it, Steele says, “The Cedar Valley’s a fantastic place. We love it here,” he said. “You can take any situation and make it good, or bad, depending on your attitude. My attitude has always been, let’s take advantage of what we do have, not dwell on what we don’t have. When you take that attitude, you find out it’s a pretty great place to raise your kids and stay for a very long time.”
