Bob Heater anchored the newscast for News-Press NOW (St. Joesph, MO) on Friday night.

On Saturday, Heater died at the age of 63.

Colleagues and friends remembered Heater as a reporter who knew St. Joseph and served as a cheerleader for his news comrades.

Heater’s television career came after he established himself as one of the most familiar voices in St. Joseph, working in local radio for 26 years.

Jackie Heater, his wife of 26 years, said Saturday evening that she became accustomed to sharing her husband with the community.

On Friday night, she said, they had gone to a local restaurant after Heater had broadcast the news from the Red Rally in Downtown St. Joseph.

“As we walked in, there was a table of two older couples sitting there, and I heard one of them as we passed say, ‘That’s Bob Heater.’ That was kind of our life,” she said.

He accepted a job as a News-Press NOW anchor in 2007, part of a founding crew of television workers in the evolving news operation.

A colleague from those early television days, and a friend before that, Julie Love said Heater proved a good teacher in the broadcasting arts.

“As a mentor, he gave me a piece of advice that I use with my students now,” said Love, an assistant professor now in the Journalism and Mass Communications Department at Benedictine College. “When you’re sitting at the desk talking, you’re just talking to someone across the kitchen table. That’s the kind of guy he was.”

Funeral arrangements are pending.

H/T News Press Now