DENVER — Longtime 9NEWS reporter Ward Lucas had a gift for both hard-hitting investigative news and telling stories that evoked a heartfelt response from his viewers.
Lucas, who was a reporter and anchor at 9NEWS for more than 30 years until his retirement in 2009, died Sunday at age 75.
He was known by his colleagues as a quick-witted truth seeker with a passion for words. Since the 9NEWS newsroom learned about his death this week, many of his colleagues have talked about their favorite and most memorable of his stories.
Lucas covered the big stories both locally and nationally, but a favorite among his 9NEWS colleagues was something a little different: a bittersweet reflection on his four-legged best friend. In the story, Lucas talks about the passage of time and asks the question: How do we know when it's time to say goodbye?
> Watch the story below:
In 1977, Lucas covered the case of serial killer Ted Bundy.
He tried to persuade the 9NEWS news director to fly him to Aspen after Bundy’s escape from the Pitkin County courthouse. At the time, the news director didn’t think this was a national enough story, so Lucas went behind his back to hire a pilot to fly him and a photographer to Aspen.
"The news director didn’t know until I started broadcasting from Aspen about the escape from the jail there, the Pitkin County courthouse," Lucas said during an interview with Tom Green in 2019, when Netflix released a documentary on the case. Lucas was featured in the documentary.
> Below, Lucas looks back on the case:
There were Lucas' poignant stories and the hard-hitting ones, and then there was that time he accidentally woke up then-Gov. Roy Romer, asleep in the backseat of a car and told him that his vehicle's tags were expired.
The chance encounter happened in the 1990s outside the Capitol.
> Watch below:
In 2019, during Reunion Week, Lucas returned to 9NEWS for a look back at his career.
Over his career, he reported from the Soviet Union, interviewed women who made a topless calendar for their assisted living facility, and shared with viewers the beauty of hummingbirds in the spring.
"Television is a very personal medium," he said. "It makes us feel more human. I think it makes viewers think of us as a little more human."
> Watch below:
And lastly, here is the tribute that 9NEWS aired for Lucas when he retired in 2009.
In the words of the tribute: "For 33 years, Ward Lucas sat at our anchor desk and told us the stories that took us to places most of us have only seen on TV. He started out doing investigative stories. He made us think. He made us care. He was attracted to stories about the peculiar. He told us stories about our best friends. He shared stories about his life. Ward never wrote in clichés. He was an original thinker who told stories in his own unique way."
> Watch below: