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About Me — Don Simkovich
Writing was my way of heading into the thick of the action
I was in early grade school when the NBC Nightly News splashed videos and images of the Vietnam War across the television screen. My parents were typically busy upstairs while I watched in our basement’s family room.
What intrigued me was how journalists could cover fights in the jungle and even American POWs being marched through the streets of Hanoi. A desire to help struck me along with marveling over this unusual role of relaying information.
My mother showed me another way of being in the action as a reporter. She wrote for our town’s newspaper and we were eating in a local diner when the fire alarm went off at the volunteer fire station.
We packed up our food, she hurriedly paid the bill and off we went behind the fire truck, watching the men battle a small brush fire.
News wasn’t the only outlet that captured my attention. Broadcasting interested me, especially sportscasting.
In 1970s Pittsburgh, I was treated to the colorful play by play of Bob Prince with Pirates baseball and Myron Cope with Steeler football, among others.
Watergate hit when I was moving from fifth grade into sixth and that marked my first attempt at writing a news story on a…
