Pittsburgh reporter Harold Hayes is retiring from KDKA after 37 years.
Hayes started at the Pittsburgh CBS affiliate in 1979 as a general assignment reporter. He started his broadcast career as the staff announcer for WSIV radio in Perkin, Illinois. A year later, he went to work at WRAU (now WHOI) in Peoria, Illinois and worked there as as weekend anchor, producer and reporter until he took the job at KDKA.
“CONGRATULATIONS Harold Hayes! After 37 years at KDKA-TV | CBS Pittsburgh,” morning anchor Jennifer Antkowiak wrote on her Facebook page. “He’s retiring next week. From Breaking News to landmark court cases..major sporting events, and more–he’s covered it all—we’ll miss him, and we wish him the best, always!”
Pittsburgh named Tuesday Harold Hayes Day in recognition of his long career in journalism.
Rick Dayton, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, said on the morning news yesterday that Hayes told him “the first election he covered was 1900 when William McKinley was running against William Jennings Bryant and ended up winning reelection,” said Dayton. “He had won in ’96, 1896, and came back and won in 1900 and that was the first election that he covered here at KDKA.”