Former Cleveland Reporter is Dead

Former WEWS reporter Alan DePetro has died. 

DePetro worked at WEWS (Cleveland) for nearly 25 years. Before that, he worked at Youngstown’s WKBN, coming to Cleveland in 1968 to work at WKBF.  He also became news director at WKBF in 1970.

He was at WEWS from 1975 to about 1999.

DePetro had a lot of pride for Cleveland. He even had aired a segment called DePetro's Cleveland, where he and photographer Brian Archer shot a "Building Cleveland" series profiling Cleveland architecture and history -- one building a week for 52 weeks.

DePetro would also write letters to CEOs of national brands (even a small Seattle company Starbucks) to tout the virtues of Cleveland to get then to open here  - Nordstrom’s and Ritz-Carlton, too - and they came.

He never forgot his Youngstown roots. When he saw how shabby his Youngstown East High School marching band uniforms were, he started a fundraising drive and got them new uniforms.

DePetro was 81 years old.

H/T WEWS