A great many of you have read the “Bartender of the Month” article the past year and have had some real fun nominating your favorite Jack, Jim and Jose Jockey, but we felt it was time to expand our search for interesting “local celebrities.” You know, those people that everyone knows in one way or another. Due to the unwavering, die-hard fanship of nearly 25 years and downright obsession my mom and so many other soccer moms in the area feel for this swarthy Casanova, Dan Katz made for a fantastic first. The Kat-Man has been steaming up the WFIE airwaves for 25 years now and is still considered the baby of the family. He follows both David James, alum of 35 years and Mike Blake, who has been with the “Tri-State’s News and Weather Leader” for a whopping 38 years. Read further to unearth the real guy behind the morning man. He reveals the secrets you have been dying to know all along: from his full head of hair to getting up in the morning and so much more.

 

N4U: You’ve been on the air in the Tri-State for a long time, and you have a lot of people who have watched you every morning since they were kids, including myself. How long have you been with WFIE?

Dan: This is my 25th year; I’ve been doing mornings for 14 years.

 

I’m 25!

Wow, now I feel old!

 

I have a birthday Friday. 

Thank goodness! It will be 27 years that I’ve been in the market. I started at Channel 7 and was there for about a year. I wasn’t plan on leaving, but sometimes those things happen. Two weeks after I left 7, I got a job with 14. When I first came to town, I never anticipated I’d be here now. It was my first job out of college, and you know how it goes – you get some experience and then you move on but it’s just worked out where I’ve stayed.

 

So you’re not from Evansville or Owensboro?

No, I was born in San Francisco and then my family moved to Illinois when I was 13. In fact, it was 40 years ago today that we moved. It was kind of a landmark for me. I ended up going to college at Western Illinois for my first year. Then, I went to Heartland Community College, and finally I moved on to Southern Illinois University where I majored in Radio/TV. I messed around for a couple of years. I was on that seven year plan.

                                 

Aren’t they called doctors? 

Yeah, I’m not even close to that! I always knew what I wanted to do but I just didn’t know how to go about it. I had to find myself, but it all worked out.

 

Do you still like your job, even though you’ve been there so long? 

Oh yeah. It’s a lot of getting up early, but it has expanded since we started. Back in ‘94, when you were what, all of six, the show was an hour long. Then we want to an hour and a half and now two and a half hours.

 
dan3-this on.jpgTell me about your family. 

My wife, Beth-Ann Patmythes, teaches Speech class at several different colleges and Universities and she is always telling me, “no ‘ums,’ or ‘uhs,’ but I’m really bad about it. I try not to do it on the air but it’s so hard! She is so quick witted, she just thinks fast enough where there are no ‘uhs’ or ‘ums’ in anything she says. We met at SIU and after college, went our separate ways, but both ended up here in Evansville. We got together and had a rabbi and a priest marry us. One of my sons dances at the Children’s Center for Dance Education and my other son plays on the Newburgh Junior Baseball League.

 

What’s the most important thing about anchoring a newscast?

Feeling and being comfortable on the air, especially in a crisis. If you’re not calm, the viewers are not. Just remember:  it’s only television; the crisis can’t get that big. Communicate what you are trying to say clearly so your audience can understand it.

 

What was the most emotionally challenging story you’ve ever covered?

9/11, of course. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. I didn’t have a family member involved or anything it but in a way everyone was connected to 9/11. It was by far the worst event that I have ever been around or drawn into. I was on the air at 8:30 and as soon as I went on, our producer said, “Dan, we have a live picture of this thing. Can you go on the air and just talk about it?” This was before we knew anything. In a way, I was the first person on the air locally to cover 9/11. After that, the network took over. Unfortunately, tragedies are the nature of the beast. The Petersburg Tornado was a huge disaster and I remember actually going there to cover it. There were several fatalities, and I went up there every day for two or three weeks. People really rallied together and helped each other. I felt so connected to them. Now that I’m an anchor, I don’t get to get out in the field much. I miss connecting with people, but with my schedule, I physically can’t do it.

 

What is the biggest change you’ve seen in the news since you started? 

I feel like we’ve gotten away from the storytelling a lot. We have the bells and whistles and graphics and swooshes, but we have just gotten away from the people aspect of news reporting.

 

Everyone has a strategy for functioning in the morning. What’s yours? 

My strategy…I don’t really have a strategy. I’ve done it for so long now, it just is part of my life. People who are watching us really don’t give a crap whether we are tired and got no sleep or don’t feel good.  They are starting their day and want to know the weather, the traffic reports and the news. They need a positive start to their day, not some guy whining and carrying on. I keep all that in mind, and then there are the buckets of coffee. People always ask me A. what time do you get up in the morning and B. what time do you go to bed?

 

Well? What time do you get up and go to bed? 

I go to bed at 7 p.m.

 

Do you feel like you miss much? 

Really, what do I miss? There is DVR now and I get to pick my kids up from school and go to all their events. If I really want to watch something that goes on later than 7, like the Super Bowl, I just sacrifice some sleep. Life really happens in the afternoons! I do get up at 1 a.m. and even though I have been doing it for 14 years, it’s not like I jump out of bed, I drag out like everyone else.

 

dan2-this one.jpgPeople know you as a face on television, professionally reporting the news – but what do you guys do on commercial breaks?  

We are always giving each other a hard time. I always tell people, “You have to be a little insane to keep your sanity.” There is so much stress involved with the news; you always have deadlines, you always have to be on, factual, accurate and sometimes you have to keep it light for each other. In the TV business, you have to have at least a little bit of personality, so you have a lot of different kinds of individuals. Byron is notorious for doing funny stuff on and off camera to try to make us crack up and we do the same thing to him. You have to be careful because some stories are more sensitive and laughing while you are trying to convey this heartbreaking story would look really bad on a resume.

 

I know you do a lot of “extracurricular” activities like volunteer work – what organizations do you spend time helping?

 I do a lot of stuff with the March of Dimes and do Walk America. My kids were three months premature. If it hadn’t been for the research of the March of Dimes, then who knows.  I’m also a 21-year testicular cancer survivor so that is also near and dear to my heart. Self-examination is an awkward and sensitive subject so I try to bring some humor to it when I speak at schools and in the community.

 

What are you up to when and if you have any free time? 

I watch sports.

 

Who is your team or teams? 

Illinois, the Bears and the Cubs. If someone dropped me off at Wrigley Field and said, “Now, stay there!” I’d be a happy man. I’ve also been trying to get back in the workout routine.

 

If you weren’t an anchorman what would you be? Trapeze artist, astronaut, mushroom farmer? 

I’d be in the creative medium, somewhere. I should have gone into acting or professional baseball, but those aren’t really dependable professions, now are they? My whole family is creative. My sister runs a jingle company in Cincinnati; my brother lives in Massachusetts and is a professional musician. My mom, Lillian Katz, is a world-renowned Elementary Educator and speaker, and my father passed away about three years ago.

 

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever seen on set? 

The zoo brought a crane on once and it wandered on to the set before it was supposed to. It came out, looked at us and turned and looked at the camera. We just cracked up laughing. It actually made it to Dick Clark’s Bloopers.

 

Do you compare yourself to Ron Burgundy?

NO! I don’t read everything on the prompter!

                                                                                            

So, the question on everyone’s mind. Let’s have the scoop on…the hair. 

Oh my gosh… I am just glad I have hair! For as much as it’s talked about, it’s so low maintenance. Just brush it and a little bit of gel. I just have naturally great hair!

 

Favorite  Movie?

All the President’s Men and Back to the Future. No matter how many times it’s on TV, I just keep watching it over and over. That Marty McFly and his flux capacitor…

 

Since you’re a pro in news business, what kind of advice would you give to a budding young anchorperson? 

WATCH THE NEWS! Oh, and just because you are on TV, doesn’t mean you are some sort of big deal.