Neil Zurcher got a lot of mileage out of one-tank trips.
By his estimate, he traveled more than 1 million miles on Ohio roads over nearly 30 years as a travel reporter.
The Cleveland broadcast veteran, famous for his “One Tank Trips” segments, died Wednesday evening at age 89, WJW-TV confirmed.
“Neil Zurcher could use words like an artist would use watercolors or clay,” Fox 8 News reported. “With his words, he made the everyday into something extraordinary.”
He was born Nov. 12, 1935, in Henrietta Township, a farming community in Lorain County. His high school class had only eight students, and he used to joke that he graduated ninth.
He credited Lowell Gatts, a teacher who became a friend, for instilling in him a sense of curiosity that served him throughout life.
After serving in the Marines, Zurcher began his media career in 1955 as a reporter and photographer for the Oberlin News-Tribune and served as news director at WEOL-WBEA radio in Elyria before joining WJW in 1967.
The Cleveland TV station noted that Zurcher covered Vietnam War protests, civil rights marches and interviewed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.