BY TED POTTS
Steve Richard, former longtime WJAC-TV weatherman, died Sunday at his Somerset home. He was 54.
Mr. Richard died unexpectedly, said his son, Lucas Richard of Hooversville.
“My dad and I were going to play golf Sunday,” his son said.
Mr. Richard resigned from WJAC-TV in August 1997 after almost 25 years with the station.
He then held a variety of jobs. He was a driver for Dunmeyer Transport out of Somerset when he died, his son said.
But Mr. Richard was best known as a WJAC-TV weatherman.
While attending Slippery Rock University after graduating in 1971 from Somerset Area High School, Mr. Richard became involved with the campus radio station.
Although he entered Slippery Rock with the goal of becoming a foreign language teacher, his experience at the radio station prompted him to pursue a broadcasting career.
He left the university, took some technical courses in radio and within months landed a job at Somerset station WVSC-AM working as a disc jockey and a newscaster. He stayed at WVSC about six months before moving to WJAC in 1973 at the age of 19, first working for WJAC radio and then, WJAC-TV.
He subsequently established his role as the station’s weatherman.
He initially presided over the weather maps when the station relied on the National Weather Service for its information.
When the station began using Accu-Weather, Mr. Richard suddenly had the backing of
30 meteorologists behind his forecasts. But there was more to his job than simply reading the forecasts from a teleprompter.
He once said in an interview with The Tribune-Democrat that the weather in this region is one of the most difficult parts of the country to forecast.
But his experiences with the region’s weather made him confident to depart from the Accu-Weather text, he said.
He was proud of his frequently accurate forecasts. But getting it right was only part of the weather picture, he said, noting the forecaster also has to be believable.
And believable was what Mr. Richard was.
For most of his time at WJAC-TV he was the only weatherman on the staff, even though he was not a meteorologist.
“He probably knew as much about the weather as anyone who has a degree in meteorology,” Bill Brown, WJAC-TV’s daytime anchor, said Monday.
Mr. Richard was precise in his duties.
“If you told him you needed three minutes of weather, he gave you that three minutes,” Brown said. “He was smooth.”
Brown said that he, Mr. Richard, WJAC-TV sportscaster Tim Rigby and retired law enforcement officer Larry Williams used to play golf regularly at Oakbrook Country Club.
Golf was his father’s favorite sporting activity, Lucas Richard said.
Although Mr. Richard was a television personality, he didn’t see himself that way, his son said.
“He was a very private person and didn’t see his work any different than anyone else holding down an eight-hour job,” Lucas Richard said.
He said his father enjoyed doing voice-overs for television commercials and various other programming.
“He liked broadcasting in general,” his son said.
Said Lucas Richard:
“He’ll be missed very much by his family and close friends. I know his voice will always live in my heart.”
In addition to his son, Mr. Richard is survived by his mother, Patricia Jane Richard of Somerset; a daughter, Elizabeth Jayne Richard of Johnstown; daughter-in-law, Angie R. Adams, wife of Lucas Richard; grandchildren, Pierce and Francis Richard; and close friend and companion, Amy Sue Miller, and her daughters, Teela and April Ogline, all of Somerset.
