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For more than 30 years, John Kiesewetter has been the source for information about all things in local media — comings and goings, local people appearing on the big or small screen, special programs, and much more. Contact John at johnkiese@yahoo.com.

My First Interview With Tim Hedrick In 1988

WKRC-TV

Shortly after Tim Hedrick came to town in 1988, he told me about his passion for science, storytelling,  teaching and television.

It's an incredible insight into Hedrick, who would become the most popular Cincinnati TV personality in my 30+ years covering broadcasting. Hedrick, just 27, knew what he wanted starting his first TV chief meteorologist job, as part of WKRC-TV's main anchor team.

In fact, Hedrick told me why he came from Des Moines to Cincinnati – one of only four cities that he pursued.

Credit John Kiesewetter
Bob Herzog remembering his friend and coworker Tim Hedrick

At the end of the 1988 story, I've added part of a story I wrote 20 years later (2008), when Hedrick explained to me how "Grilling with Tim" started in the early 1990s.

You'll hear more about Hedrick – who died April 23 at age 55 – at a free public memorial service7:30 p.m. Thursday at Xavier University's Cintas Center.  Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Here's what I wrote for the Cincinnati Enquirer on Saturday, Oct. 28, 1988. It was one of several mini-profiles of new TV anchors in fall 1988:

"Tim Hedrick, Channel 12 weatherman"

Hedrick isn't a class clown, like Willard Scott, David Letterman or other TV weathermen, past and present.

He doesn't write backwards like Ira Joe Fisher, his predecessor on the early news.

Credit WKRC-TV
Tim Hedrick in 1993.

But "part of my job is entertainment," concedes Hedrick, the Queen City's only late-night TV meteorologist. "They (viewers) have to like me. But at the same time, there's a portion of me that's a storyteller or a teacher."

Hedrick, 27, earned double degrees (meteorology and speech) from Iowa State University in 1983 ("I wanted to know what I was talking about"). He traces his weather interests to age 13, while watching thunderstorms from the front porch in Homewood, Ill. Now he watched the sky from the porch of his Tudor home in Westwood…

Hedrick, from WHO-TV in Des Moines, limited his job search this summer to four Midwest cities: Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Cincinnati.

"Places in the Midwest where the (interesting) weather is," he says.

June 2008 Cincinnati Enquirer story:

It all started with a pot roast in the early 1990s.

WKRC-TV meteorologist Tim Hedrick grilled a pot roast in Italian dressing on his back porch during a weather segment about 17 years ago, and the Channel 12 phone lines lit up.

"I was mystified by the response. People wanted to know what I was grilling next," Hedrick says.

That quickly grew into the "Grilling with Tim" segments with viewers' recipes, and the weekly summer cook-outs for 200.

Now Hedrick is cooking up something really big this summer. He'll host Channel 12's weekly cooking show, renamed "The Dish Presents Tim Hedrick Grillin' with an Attitude," starting at 10am Friday.  Chef Meg Galvin, who has hosted the show from the Cincinnati State Technical and Community College kitchens, will take the summer off to be with her children….

Les Vann, who took over Channel 12 in April for Newport Television LLC, the new owners, says he continues to look for new local programming opportunities… Among the candidates for fall is a second "Doppler Tim's Science Special," says Hedrick, who has called himself "kind of a scientist that ended up on television, with good communications."

He doesn't call himself a chef.

"Meg Galvin is a master chef. I'm a meteorologist who likes to grill."

Here is a link to my April 24 blog,'Doppler Tim' Hedrick Was More Than Our 'Weather Authority."

tim hedrick
Credit John Kiesewetter
/
WVXU
Tim Hedrick in the 2011 Opening Day parade.

John Kiesewetter, who has covered television and media for more than 35 years, has been working for Cincinnati Public Radio and WVXU-FM since 2015.