Anchor, Mike Donahue. Mike Donahue, anchor. The name defines the noun; the noun defines the name. Mike officially signed off to us all on Friday at the age of 77. For nearly half a century, Mike Donahue was the boundary stone on the plat map of Portland television journalism from which all else was measured.

It has been 11 years since Mike retired from KOIN-TV, and in some ways, our evening rendezvous with the local news has never been the same. Mike was Portland’s number-one dinner guest. Over the years, hundreds of thousands of Oregonians invited Mike into their living room to hear him deliver the news of the day as if it were written and delivered just for them.

There were, of course, many big stories, from Mount St. Helens to the Rajneesh invasion, political scandal to 9/11, and so many more. Take the forensic team into the archive of Oregon’s last half-century, brush & dust for evidence, and you will find Mike Donahue’s fingerprints on just about everything. But those stories did not define Mike Donahue. It was how he defined them to us that set him apart. His integrity, compassion, addiction to fairness, and unwavering belief it was better to get it right than to get it first.

His genuine compassion for others and commitment to his friends, colleagues, and family were ever-present. Above all, it was his faith that sustained him. It’s no wonder he and his wife Susan named their two daughters Joy and Noelle.

Shirley Hancock, who shared the anchor desk with Mike Donahue for many years, said this:

“Mike may have been a quiet leader but his integrity and loyalty never wavered. When a former general manager told Mike to stop giving his faith testimony in churches, Mike refused. He pushed management, often unsuccessfully, for maintaining a high standard of journalism quality. Through the highs and lows, he remained true to his impeccable standards and to his friends.” You can read more of Shirley’s own personal reflections here.

As the sports director at KOIN, I had the privilege of sitting at the anchor desk with Michael for almost 16 years. He was a baseball fanatic. Or, more specifically, a Yankees fanatic. A devoted follower since his youth, Mike could cite all the latest batting averages, RBIs, and ERAs. Every year, when the Yankees would come west to play the Mariners, Mike would vacate the anchor chair for a day and head to Seattle to grab his seat in the bleachers.

Mike was a quiet mentor to all he worked with. He didn’t tell you how to do things, he showed you by the way he went about his work. His grace and calm were a distinguishing contrast to the chaos that often permeated the newsroom on a busy day of breaking news. When producers would start tossing story scripts like confetti and filling the air with rants of words four letters in length, Mike would remain calmly at his desk, writing, editing, fact-checking, oblivious to the mayhem about him.

To many, he was Walter Cronkite, Mr. Rogers & John Paul ll rolled into one. Kind, comforting, authentic. He was approached several times about entering politics. He always just chuckled. He once told me: “I’d much rather report the news than be the news.”

In 1992, when another change in newsroom management rolled into town, I was among those placed on waivers. After my last broadcast, clearing out my desk and accepting the well-wishes of my colleagues, I noticed a small white envelope and card propped atop my IBM Selectric typewriter. It read in part:

“Don’t think of this day as the end, but rather, as the start of an exciting new beginning.”

– Mike Donahue

Mike never embraced a role as a celebrity in town. He embraced life’s simple pleasures. Every day, he would come to work with the sack lunch his wife Susan would prepare for him. A ham sandwich, maybe a crisp apple, and a half pint of milk. He tended the roses in his garden at home and his craft in the newsroom.

He was never comfortable with the ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ forces that increasingly dominate local news decisions even to this day (a notable exception being KGW’s ‘The Story’ newscast every weekday). He believed in substance and context. Longer, more in-depth stories were valued over a rapid-fire sequence of cop cars and ambulances.

There were many humorous moments over the years. Mike would never realize his dream of being a professional baseball player, but he was a gold glove winner at the news desk. He fielded everything cleanly and delivered it with great precision. So, it was memorable when the teleprompter and anchor combined for an errant toss.

During one evening newscast, a breaking story out of Seattle came in about a collision in Puget Sound between a passenger ferry boat and a foreign-flagged freighter. Reading on the fly, Mike reported the incident something like this: “A near tragedy was avoided today in Seattle where a ferry rammed the rear of a librarian-err, make that a Liberian freighter.”

Back in those days, KOIN had a ‘live’ newsroom, meaning reporters were visible at their desks behind the anchor set. Sound engineers could do little to muffle the laughter that the staff tried hard to conceal. Mike never wavered, never flinched. He moved right along to the next story, his face red as a Washington apple, the only giveaway as to what had just happened.

In the latter days of his career, yet another change in station ownership also brought change to the newsroom. Mike was moved from the starting rotation and relegated to the bullpen, known as the noon news. He accepted the reassignment with grace and poise, giving the same high level of professionalism he exhibited during those many years in prime time.

Upon his retirement in April 2012, his colleagues, past and present, gathered together to honor him the best way they knew how. They bought him an original bleacher seat from Yankee Stadium so he could spend the rest of his years watching his beloved baseball team, charting the hits and recording the outs, all from the comfort of his living room.

Mike died after a courageous bout with pancreatic cancer. He lost his beloved wife, Susan, just a few months before. Mike always gave us his best. He continued right until the end. And then he gave us a bounty of memories.

But for this man of such deep faith, he would tell us all that this is not the end —just the start of an exciting new beginning.