LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Tom Watson, a hall of fame broadcast reporter whose long career of covering breaking news included decades as a broadcast editor for The Associated Press in Kentucky, has died. He was 85.
Watson's baritone voice and sharp wit were fixtures in the AP's Louisville bureau, where he wrote broadcast reports and cultivated strong connections with reporters at radio and TV stations spanning the state. His coverage ranged from compiling weather-related school closings to filing urgent reports on big, breaking stories in his home state, maintaining a calm demeanor regardless of the story.
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Watson died Saturday at Baptist Health in Louisville, according to Hall-Taylor Funeral Home in his hometown of Taylorsville, 34 miles (55 kilometers) southeast of Louisville. No cause of death was given.
Watson was the “consummate radio newsman of his era,” said retired AP Kentucky bureau chief Ed Staats, who worked with Watson for years.
“His news writing for the state broadcast wire, I think, undoubtedly reached more Kentuckians than any other” news organization in the Bluegrass State, Staats said by phone on Tuesday. "When he wrote a news summary in Kentucky, with the AP serving every significant radio station with a commitment to news, they would hear AP stories fashioned by Tom.”
Thomas Shelby Watson was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009. His 50-year journalism career began at WBKY at the University of Kentucky, according to his hall of fame biography.
Watson led news departments at WAKY in Louisville and at a radio station in St. Louis before starting his decades-long AP career. Under his leadership, a special national AP award went to WAKY for contributing 1,000 stories used on the wire in one year, his hall of fame biography said. Watson and his WAKY team also received a National Headliner Award for coverage of a chemical plant explosion, it said.
At the AP, Watson started as state broadcast editor in late 1973 and retired in mid-2009. Known affectionately as “Wattie” to his colleagues, he staffed the early shift in the Louisville bureau, writing and filing broadcast and print stories while fielding calls from AP members.
“Tom was an old-school state broadcast editor who produced a comprehensive state broadcast report that members wanted,” said Adam Yeomans, regional director-South for the AP, who as a bureau chief worked with Watson from 2006 to 2009. “He kept AP ahead on many breaking stories.”
Watson also wrote several non-fiction books as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles. From 1988 through 1993, he operated “The Salt River Arcadian,” a monthly newspaper in Taylorsville.
Genealogy and local history were favorite topics for his writing and publishing. Watson was an avid University of Kentucky basketball fan and had a seemingly encyclopedic memory of the school's many great teams from the past.
His survivors include his wife, Susan Scholl Watson of Taylorsville; his daughters, Sharon Elizabeth Staudenheimer and her husband, Thomas; Wendy Lynn Casas; and Kelly Thomas Watson, all of Louisville; his two sons, Chandler Scholl Watson and his wife, Nicole, of Taylorsville; and Ellery Scholl Watson of Lexington; his sister, Barbara King and her husband, Gordon, of Louisville; and his nine grandchildren.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday at Hall-Taylor Funeral Home of Taylorsville.