Reflecting on WDAZ’s Decision to End Grand Forks Newscasts

GRAND FORKS, ND (trfnews.i234.me) We look back at some WDAZ history as WDAZ TV has announced it will stop its newscasts from Grand Forks.
Neil Berg here in Grand Forks at wdz television on South Washington Street where it’s been announced that on December 21st that will be their last news crew broadcast out of Grand Forks everything will be merged down into WDAY in Fargo sad day for the staff that worked here I thought it’d give you a bit of history about this place since I worked here for five years back in 1980 I started there what DZ when I was going to school at the University of North Dakota at the time their studio was downtown in what is now the u.s. bank building at the time Chuck Bundy this guy he was the anchor kind of an unflappable guy he had been there almost since the station started I believe in January of 1967 a little story about Chuck how unflappable he was he’s since passed away but at one point in the early 80s we had a plane explode and catch on fire at the Grand Forks Air Force Base and we learned much later that there was actually a nuke aboard that plane and there was talk of evacuating greater Grand Forks but at the time chuck was high I shot the video of that incident at the time Chuck was will suppose we better get out there and take some pictures oh he was a nice guy to work with and also at the time sports guy was a Dale McCabe out of Valley City the hard driving voice of Dale McCabe who was also since passed on and doing the weather was the famous doing Burke West but that won’t affect us but that is developing into a storm system in case your grandmother down there and you maybe wanna know that she’s gonna be in a storm of some sort you’re not of a certain age you probably don’t remember him but if you had extra time at the end of the weather cast he’d have a stare down at the camera one interesting story about Dooley Bergquist that was in the early 80s maybe 83 wdz and at the time was kth I switch networks W Daz went from NBC to ABC there’s kind of a big party out of the westward hole and they brought in a TV star I believe it was Heather Locklear I think I had a picture with standing with her at one point but anyway there was also a line to get your picture taken with Dewey Bergquist the weather guy or Heather Locklear guess who had the longest line Dewey Bergquist the famous weather guy so a bit of an era end of an era coming up here in Grand Forks things are changing as they always do and as one thing disappears there’s always something new in Grand Forks I’m Neil Berg reporting for our news dot TV