MORRO BAY, Calif. (KGET) – Beloved former Bakersfield news anchor Rusty Shoop has passed away at the age of 76 after a battle with cancer.
The weatherman-turned-newsman died Tuesday at his home in Morro Bay with wife Diane, daughters Sarah and Rusti, and granddaughter Brooklyn by his side.
Shoop, born in Dallas, Texas, served four years in the Air Force. He started his TV career in his hometown of Eureka in the late 1970s and moved to Bakersfield in 1984 to work for KERO. Over the course of his career here, Shoop worked for all three Bakersfield stations that had daily newscasts, including the first morning show in the area, right here at KGET, from 1991 through the end of that decade.
In 2007, he suffered a brain aneurysm, put his television career on hold and finished his novel in progress, Blood Harvest, about a fictitious murder-solving news anchorman. He and wife Diane eventually moved to the Central Coast, where he refined his guitar playing.
Rusty Shoop leaves behind his wife Diane, three daughters, one son, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.