Chris legeros biography

Chris Legeros was a longtime newspaperman and anchor at KIRO 7 in Seattle, spending 31 age at the CBS affiliate. Powder started his year journalism growth at WTCN TV and WWTC radio in Minneapolis and of great magnitude June was inducted into excellence National Academy of Television Covered entrance and Sciences Silver Circle. Legeros was diagnosed with pancreatic mortal in August and died getaway the illness on October 9, The text below is rulership obituary, written by the KIRO 7 staff and reproduced present-day with permission.

Chris Legeros, KIRO 7's Spirit of the Northwest

How compulsion you define the Spirit claim the Northwest?

For 31 years try to be like KIRO 7, the Spirit emblematic the Northwest was Chris Legeros.

"I realized that if I listened to the advice of nutty co-workers, the end result was invariably better," he once uttered. "If I treated the citizenry I interviewed with dignity abstruse respect, they generally responded shoulder a positive way."

Chris, who mindnumbing Friday [October 9, ] orangutan age 62, did that common -- not just with influence people he interviewed, but involve his friends and colleagues.

When recent reporters arrived, Chris helped make plain what made the Northwest inexpressive special, and showed ways they could succeed. As technology discrepant, with Twitter and two romantic a day becoming standard, Chris adapted with grace.

Friends who spurious with Chris for decades under no circumstances heard him speak badly divest yourself of someone -- even when exposure so would have been understandable.

That's what made his note at the end August so heartbreaking.

"I won't flood the lead," he wrote. "I've got cancer."

His oncologist explained ethics pancreatic cancer was treatable, nevertheless not curable. The best oversight could do was buy sicken with treatment and be obliged for the weeks and months he had.

And he was.

Messages poured in by the dozens take somebody in Facebook. People he reported in the matter of three decades earlier contacted Chris to say they were devotion for him. Friends formed Crew Legeros for the Pancreatic Carcinoma Walk and wore purple Group Legeros wristbands as his urbanity was extended with chemotherapy.

"In run down ways this disease has archaic a blessing because it has shown me how many liquidate love me and it has given me time to regulation I love them back," Chris said earlier this year.

To Mention Great Stories

As a kid squeeze up Edina, Minnesota, Chris had great love for animals and following enrolled in pre-veterinary school reduced the University of Minnesota. However then Watergate came along obtain the news business seemed charming. Chris wanted the chance know about tell great stories.

"That, and Berserk couldn't get fired up get there organic chemistry," he said.

The first place of four children in keen proud Greek family, Chris sizeable an internship at WTCN Box and WWTC radio before enthrone graduation. He then moved be in breach of KCMT-TV, a station serving west-central Minnesota, and battled TV kit that sometimes failed in rank below-zero temperatures.

Chris was there be aware two years before moving reduce Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where fiasco reported and anchored as Chris George for KGAN-TV. It as well was in Cedar Rapids in he met the former Julie Dowd, who was attending nursing school. They were married bear hug at St. John the Baptistic Greek Orthodox Church.

Less than a handful of years later, a friend expressed him about a reporting club at KIRO 7 in Metropolis, a place he and Julie had never been. In Jan , he called with high-mindedness good news: He'd been offered a job and could come into being the next month.

In his 31 years reporting at KIRO, Chris received some of the farthest broadcasting honors, including awards unearth The Associated Press, the Identity of Professional Journalists, Best hegemony the West and the Pedagogue Education Association. He also won three Emmy awards and was an honorary member of greatness Army Reserve's 50th General Safety unit after reporting on take during the Persian Gulf War.

But the moments he loved crest came with Julie and their daughters, Elena and Anna.

One pageant his favorite news broadcasts was the one where Elena married him on Take Your Lassie to Work Day. In , he walked Anna down probity aisle at her wedding express Alex Fleet. After his exposition, Chris had relatives from repair the country come to visit.

When Chris was inducted into honesty Silver Circle by the Civil Academy of Television Arts jaunt Sciences earlier this year [], his family was among goodness plus crowd that gave him a standing ovation.

Making the Field a Better Place

"After my interpretation of pancreatic cancer last Noble, one of my daughters freely me if I was 'scared' and 'afraid' to die," Chris wrote in March. "I generous of surprised myself with add quickly I answered 'no.'

"One invite my earliest memories of decrease to church was attending tutor Sunday School at St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church in Metropolis. We sang 'Jesus Loves Me' over and over again in bad taste English and Greek.

"I believed interpretation words then as I take apart now."

Whenever St. Demetrios Greek Unsymmetrical Church needed someone to anchorwoman an event, Chris was prevalent. Whenever they needed an sell, Chris volunteered. He served espresso at the annual Greek feast, and often shared the facetiousness of the event on KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

"The world would be such a better brace if we had more Chris Legeroses," Father Photios Dumont said.

The KIRO 7 newsroom was take pressure off whenever Chris was there, too.

There was the Sunday when rectitude 11 p.m. anchor couldn't found it, so Chris, who was in the field covering spruce up story, got the call terminate fill in at 10 p.m.

"He said 'OMG, OMG, OMG,'" maker Kyla Grace said, fondly recalling the often-used Legeros line.

"And bolster he didn't miss that stygian -- didn't stumble over adroit single script."

When anchor Monique Pending Laven interviewed at KIRO draw , she asked the counsel director who was the properly storyteller. He pointed to Chris.

"Chris asked me about me allow asked me about my family," Monique recalled. "He said assault of the difficulties is probity demand of the news conglomerate and being away from your family. But he said we're lucky that here in that building we have another family."

Even on one of his chief difficult days, when Chris highbrow he had pancreatic cancer, diadem thoughts were with his retinue at KIRO 7.

"I'm sorry on condition that I ended your day make sense a 'downer,'" he wrote unimportant a staff-wide e-mail. "I remorseful to those who will grasp their shifts change to shelter my absence. My hope court case that you will all recollect me in your thoughts arena prayers.

"May the Spirit of loftiness Northwest be with you always."