For 40 years, reporter Dick Berry has been a staple of the WTOL-TV, Channel 11, news team. That ends Sunday, as the 66-year-old broadcast journalist retires from the only TV station for which he has ever worked.

With ongoing changes in the industry, and in journalism in general, Mr. Berry said the time just seemed right for him to step away.

"The whole media business has become more corporate ... which is affecting how the news is covered, as well as the people you see entering the news business," he said. "A lot of them are not qualified to be in the news business. I just wonder how they got to be where they are.

"All the decisions are made based on dollars and cents. It's a corporate thing."

A 1977 graduate of Bowling Green State University, where he majored in journalism and minored in political science, Mr. Berry's career began as a news reporter for local radio, WCWA and WIOT. The radio stations happened to be located on the upper floors of the same downtown building as WTOL, which afforded Mr. Berry the only career break he would need.

"I came into contact with Channel 11 people," he said. "I was in the right place at the right time [and] I met the right people and knew the right people and got hired to Channel 11."

An only child, Mr. Berry said he never seriously pursued a job outside of the Toledo market. "I knew I always had to be there for my mother," who died in July, five years after she was diagnosed with dementia, he said. "But I've always enjoyed living in Toledo and Channel 11 has always been a good station ... that's why I stayed here."

During his many years at WTOL, Mr. Berry said he has covered politics, crimes, and just about anything general feature imaginable, including riding the latest Cedar Point roller-coasters, and, as a popular weekly segment that ran on WTOL for a decade, offering day-trip suggestions to local viewers. Then there was the time, off-air, when Mr. Berry said he dressed as a monk and appeared onstage with Ozzy Osbourne for a concert at the Toledo Sports Arena in the 1980s, and then hung out with the "Prince of Darkness" metal singer in his tour bus after the show.

"Just having anything thrown at me, just going out there and doing it ... I just enjoyed the versatility of what I've been able to do," he said.

What Mr. Berry said he considers to be his most memorable work shift as a reporter, in fact, stems from his ability to cover any kind of news. He began a workday interviewing childhood actor Jerry Mathers (forever known as "Beaver" in Leave it to Beaver), who was in Toledo for a paid promotional appearance. Hours later, after having lunch with Mr. Mathers, Mr. Berry was in Chicago with a Channel 11 cameraman covering the arrest of Ohio and Midwest serial killer Alton Coleman, and then back at the station that evening for additional reporting. 

"I went to the bar that night and thought, ‘I'll never have another day in my career like that,’" he said, "to go from Beaver to a serial killer in the same day."

And he never did, Mr. Berry said. "That's just one day that sicks out in my mind. It was crazy."

WTOL general manager Brian Lorenzen noted how rare it is for anyone to work at the same place for 40 years.

“And [Mr. Berry] has done this and has always been a professional about it," Mr. Lorenzen said.

"In the newsroom, there's no way to hide when somebody has worked there for 40 years,” he added, “but people young and old love working with him."

The station marked Mr. Berry’s 40th anniversary at WTOL earlier this summer with a celebration at the station, Mr. Lorenzen said, and there are plans to host a retirement party for Berry and station personnel, past and present, next month.

As for the veteran reporter’s Sunday sign-off to viewers, don't expect much ado about Mr. Berry from WTOL.

"We're just trying to do it to his liking," Mr. Lorenzen said. "He's OK with a little bit but not too much."

After that ... well, Mr. Berry said he isn't quite sure what happens when he enters his post-WTOL life.

He might find a part-time job, he might volunteer. But whatever it is he does next, Mr. Berry said, it will involve people. Interacting with others is what he has loved most about being a reporter at WTOL, he said. But the face-to-face kind of communications, not conversations through a screen.

"I'm not in tune with the digital stuff, social media," Mr. Berry said. "I don't use Facebook, I don't do Twitter or anything like that.

"I'm an analog man in a digital world."

First Published September 27, 2019, 10:42 p.m.