Do You Remember These West Michigan Local News Icons?

This week, West Michigan lost one of its pioneers in news broadcasting. Buck Matthews, WOOD TV8's long-time weatherman and host of "The Buck Matthews Show," passed away at 97 years old. He brought a level of class and charm to his 20+ years as a weatherman, during which he famously "never knew what he was doing" because he reported the weather without any meteorological knowledge.

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His decades-long career spanned TV, radio, and literature, and his impact in West Michigan was felt years after his retirement.

After looking into his esteemed career, I began looking at other TV anchors around West Michigan over the years and came to the conclusion: this is a very fortunate region.

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Local television is notorious for its high turnover rate, yet many news stations around here have anchors, meteorologists, and others who have had decades-long careers across stations like WOOD TV8, WZZM 13, WWMT, and FOX 17.

These anchors have become anchors in their communities over the years, and people have continued to look to them even after their time on the TV screen ended. People like Bill Steffen, Andy Rent, Susan Shaw, Juliet Dragos, and more faithfully served West Michigan for decades, and many others have done the same.

In honor of their commitments to West Michigan, we're highlighting many of the news anchors and more who gave extra hours away from home to keep West Michigan residents informed and safe.