[Music] Mohammed al-Fassi and his entourage.

This isn't a feature story about how they make corn cob pipes.

It had become a trivia question.

He stood next to one of today's 7 foot basketball centers, Robert Wadllo would tower nearly 2 feet over them.

It wasn't anything I really wanted to do through grade school or high school.

I was in college.

I was thinking maybe being a social studies teacher.

And literally an old girlfriend at the time said, "You ought to look at radio TV.

you'd probably like that.

And I said, "Yeah, okay."

Jim Kirchherr may have chosen his career with a casual attitude, but in 51 years as a broadcaster, his approach to reporting on issues, preserving history, and telling the stories of this region is anything but accidental.

Had to be able to move thousands of people in an 8-hour period.

After graduating from the University of Illinois, Kirchherr began his career in radio news in Danville and Joliet, Illinois.

As I always say, I did two years in Joliet.

I just wanted to dive right in, and I didn't care where I did it.

I worked evenings and covered a lot of schoolboard meetings, but the stories weren't due to the following morning.

It gave me time to write and record, then I didn't like it, and I'd rewrite it, and I'd re re-record it, and I didn't like it.

And I kept I kept working at it to get it down to as good and efficient a telling of that story as possible.

And I think that's really where I learned to measure each and every word to the point where Yeah, I think I've got it.

You're going to like Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, it doesn't matter.

Okay.

Was it just kind of like best memories with them or what you'll kind of take my glasses off or I don't have like a specific story that uh that I I'm not starting.

I'm just saying this.

I'm going to see it in one take.

I'm going to do it good.

Jim, congrats on a great career.

Channel 2's Jim Kirchherr has more from the newsroom.

Jim.

Well, Susan, while those two schools will apparently stay open, the board is now considering closing Central High School.

Kirchherr became a familiar face in St. Louis when he joined the television newsroom at KTVI in 1978.

Jim, well, Kim, it was a very hot meeting.

There was some confusion and anger about motions and votes, but in the end, the St. Louis city teachers voted to reject the school district's latest contract offer.

And it was fun.

It was constant.

It never stopped.

It just just kept you going.

But what I didn't realize, I once took a 4-week vacation while I was working at Channel 2.

And it wasn't until the third week that my body I felt my body begin to relax.

That's when I realized how much pressure and and tension there was involved in that.

But it did keep you going.

And being deadline driven is what I've been for the last 50 years.

So I loved working on deadlines.

What you drinking, Carrie?

In 1987, Kirchherr and his family moved to Germany where he became the senior news editor at Radio Free Europe.

Went to Munich, Germany, worked for Radio Free Europe for 4 years in the central news uh department which was sort of an internal wire service.

I went to Germany just for the opportunity to live in Germany.

I joked that I would have taken a job sweeping the floors at Radio Free Europe if it allowed me to live there.

And when I was uh deciding to move back to St. Louis, my friend Mary Leahy, who'd been working here, Martin Duggan's daughter, she said there was an opening at Channel 9 and it was a good place to work.

And I said, "Fine, I'll I'll apply."

and I got the job to do News Night, which was a weekly public affairs program.

Good evening, I'm Jim Kirchherr.

There are big changes and big challenges this week in higher education in St. Louis and in the state of Missouri.

The changes and so public TV sounds like I'm just being nice here, but it's not.

It's absolutely true.

Public TV was the perfect place to take that long TV news, radio news experience, living in Germany and covering really in writing about international news.

I wanted something more than just coming back and covering fires and and accidents.

And Channel 9 made made that opportunity available and I jumped at it.

Um, oh god.

Oh my god.

I need a word.

Where's Jim?

I need a word.

Jim, what do I say?

I mean, I really don't even know where to start.

Illustrious, influential, um, impactful.

Yeah, Jim is a workhorse.

He's always putting out new content, and I really admire that, even as he's working on longer form documentaries.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do every morning when I come in, and I can't uh I can't call you on the phone.

I think I might just call your phantom number and and and hope that you answer.

It's ringing.

It's still ringing.

Jim, are you there?

What What are we doing next week?

I don't know.

You know, there was a time when I was a kid that I wanted to dig a hole in my backyard all the way to China.

Well, this was just another dusty western settlement, optimistically calling itself the city of Kansas.

It was in 1991 when Kirchherr began working at KETC Channel 9 that he cemented his legacy as this region's preeminent storyteller.

For the past 34 years, Kirchherr has elevated the issues important to the St. Louis region, enlightened our community with stories of the people, places, and organizations that make St. Louis great.

And through his ability to find just the right word, he has become a history teacher, connecting our past to our present and our future.

In just about any city's history, you could set aside a whole chapter just for the disasters, the fires, and the floods, the storms, and the crashes, the events of tragedy and upheaval, the bold headlines and special reports.

And yet today, a lot of these have been nearly forgotten as old news.

Kirchherr's work at NIne PBS includes countless award-winning documentaries and specials, multiple national PBS credits.

1 2 3 22 seasons of Living St. Louis.

We are often taking the mundane things, things that people just drive by, they don't notice, they've seen it their whole lives, and we take the lid off of it, and we say, "What's the story here?"

And a lifetime of colleagues and friends who have grown in their own work because of his talents and guidance and have learned to always take their work seriously, but never themselves.

I'm going to read you a quote from 1890s from Theodore Dryer.

Oh, no.

It is so neat.

It's funny.

You know, I I realize I've been here so long, not quite half the life of this station, but but but pretty close.

The the the work we do in the community, the work we do on the air, online, all of that, that has grown so much.

And yet I would say that the standards have remained the same.

You know, I I don't see myself as a teacher, but I think I've set a pretty good example for producers who come into this place.

I would also say that I have worked with some very good people younger than I who have become good and even better than me producers.

And so that work carries on.

Wow.

Yeah.