April 4, 2018. Dave Carew. “Happy Birthday, Tedd! Have a great time full of mischief.”
I type the name of my first boss into Facebook’s search bar. I left Sioux City, Iowa 14 years ago, but I often think about the man who gave me my start in broadcast news. His page pops up. Tedd O’Connell. Green Bay, Wisconsin. A black-and-white photo of a newsman in a trench coat.
That’s Tedd. But Tedd’s been dead for more than a decade.
April 4, 2017. Justin Roberts. “Happy Birthday Tedd!! Hope heaven is a party that never stops!”
This seems off. Tedd wasn’t the social media type, and Facebook was in relative infancy when he fell sick years ago. But this wouldn’t be Tedd’s first surprise.
April 4, 2016. Molly Fitch. “Happy Birthday, Tedd. Hope you’re snacking on donut holes and listening to Eminem upstairs today.”
Growing up near New York, attending college near Chicago, I was unprepared for the flat skyline of Sioux City. I was less prepared for my first boss to rock a full-coiffed mullet and a raspy voice born of a thousand cigarettes.
April 4, 2015. Derek Wittenburg. “Happy birthday…..Tedanator with us all.”
For 15 years, Tedd was the Ron Burgundy of Madison, Wisconsin. He flew to Cuba for a story and met Castro. He broke major stories and won major awards. Then he took over newsrooms. A decade removed from his final time on the anchor desk, he landed in Iowa to run a fledgling third-place news station. At some point I should have wondered if Tedd viewed this job as beneath his stature and legacy. Tedd never gave us that choice.