Merle Rossmann, KSRO star and a leading voice of Sonoma County radio, dies at 92

Merle Rossmann, the venerable and genteel former Sonoma County radio broadcaster who for decades played the cerebral straight man to the Dangerfield-esque Jim Grady, died Sunday.

Rossmann, who clipped his on-air name to Ross as he co-anchored the morning show at landmark Sonoma County station KSRO and traveled far and wide with Grady to cover college and high school games play-by-play, had days earlier sustained a stroke. The longtime Santa Rosa resident was 92.

A native of Lodi and a World War II veteran, Rossmann brought a distinct grace to a golden period of Sonoma County broadcasting that began in the late 1950s. Then listeners relied on stations like KSRO for live news and in-person coverage of prep sports and community events.

“He was a great reporter,” said retired Montgomery High coach and teacher Russ Peterich, a friend of Rossmann for more than 50 years. “He and Jim Grady did a great job with high school athletics.”

Peterich added about Rossmann, “He was one of the best people I’ve ever met.”

Former standout basketball player and coach Steve Tiedeman had listened to Rossmann before meeting him when he joined the varsity team at Montgomery in the late 1960s.

“It was just a different time,” said Tiedeman, who was a standout at Montgomery and then at Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University, and later coached championship teams at SSU. “Every game was on the radio, and it was a big deal to be interviewed by him.”

Rossmann, Tiedeman said, “was one of those guys you always looked up to.”

An exacting sort, Rossmann wasn’t shy about speaking up at KSRO when he perceived that he could do something at the station better than it was being done.

“Eventually they let him do it his way, which meant working 12-hour days,” said his wife of nearly 71 years, Ann Rossmann. “But he wanted things to be right.”

Merle Rossmann started at KSRO in 1959 as production manager and over the course of nearly 40 years did just about everything, from reporting on major fires and floods and delivering up-to-the-minute election returns to serving as on-air anchor, traveling sportscaster and in-house jack-of-all-trades.

“He was really the first steady, long-term news guy at KSRO,” said friend Gaye LeBaron, the Press Democrat columnist and writer of Sonoma County history.

As with comedy’s Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, and Hope and Crosby, as a radioman Rossmann’s name and identity were long inseparably linked with friend and fellow KSRO icon Jim Grady. Rossmann was as calm and deliberate as Grady was garrulous and unscripted.

“They had a great relationship because they were different types of personalities,” said Carole Grady, whose husband died in 2013 at 77. “I really think they complemented each other.”

LeBaron said that all through the on-air partners’ good, long run, “Merle was the voice-of-sanity counterpoint to Grady’s craziness.”

One of Rossmann’s four children, retired veteran Press Democrat reporter Randi Rossmann, said her dad had already worked a full week for KSRO when he and Grady would cover a night game in Sonoma County or on the road.

“It was nothing for him to drive to Weed in Northern California or to a Southern California college to work a game with Grady, finish up late in the night then drive back — Rossmann always behind the wheel — and be on the air at 5 a.m., sounding crisp and assured.”

Grady and Rossmann were inducted into the Santa Rosa Junior College Sports Hall of Fame in 2000.

“They were so good at what they did,” Randi Rossmann said. “I was just mesmerized by my father's abilities.”

The Graton resident added, “I was so proud to follow in his footsteps and emulate his reporting style. Being known as ’Merle Ross' daughter’ was an honor.'"

Merle Emil Rossmann Jr. was born in 1928 in Lodi. His family has settled in the East Bay when he entered Fremont High School. One memorable Halloween night, he went to a party at a church and there met Ann Powell.

The two of them corresponded by mail after Rossmann went into the Army and was sent near the end of World War II to Japan. The couple married on May 27, 1950.

Ann Rossmann found she was drawn most powerfully to her husband’s sense of humor. Their four children were all given names starting in “R” because their dad liked the way they blended with Rossmann. They would grow up laughing with and at him, and trying to out-pun him.

As a young war veteran, he attended San Jose State College on the GI Bill, then started his career in broadcasting as a DJ at a station in Watsonville. He was 31 when he started at KSRO in 1959.

Said Randi Rossmann, “His first day on the job he found himself broadcasting a Healdsburg High basketball tournament with the late Dan Galvin.”

As important as his work at KSRO was to Merle Rossmann, and as consuming, he found time for his family and for kicking back. From the time he was a teenager, he loved to camp and hike alongside Lake Tahoe.

“He loved red wine, a complicated spy novel, sitting in hot sun, a hard crossword,” said his daughter the retired PD reporter. The broadcaster was also semi-famous for the birthday cards he made with old photos he’d found, and for his cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip cookies.

“He was baking up until he died,” Randi Rossmann said.

In addition to his wife in Santa Rosa and his daughter in Graton, Merle Rossmann is survived by daughter Robin Rossman of Freestone, sons Robert Rossman of Grass Valley and Rusty Van Rossmann of Albany, Oregon; sister Joanne Grimm of Oakland, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Graveside services will be private. A celebration of Rossmann’s life will be scheduled for this summer.

His family suggests memorial donations to favorite charities.

You can contact Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.