WRAL legend Charlie Gaddy — ‘the Walter Cronkite of North Carolina’ — has died
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- Charlie Gaddy, longtime WRAL anchor and NC broadcasting icon, has died at 93.
- Gaddy led WRAL’s evening newscasts for 20 years, retiring in 1994.
- He earned awards, reported from the field during crises and championed public causes.
Charlie Gaddy, the longtime WRAL anchor who was often called “the Walter Cronkite of North Carolina,” has died.
Gaddy’s death Thursday morning was confirmed by WRAL news director Mike Friedrich. Gaddy was 93.
His beloved wife of 60 years, Nancy Rankin Gaddy, passed away in 2021.
“It’s a sad day here,” Friedrich told The News & Observer on Thursday. “Whether you grew up watching Charlie or you didn’t — or you only heard about him — he was a guy who continued to make his mark on this newsroom and was part of that gold standard that built WRAL.”
A North Carolina favorite son
As if there could ever be any doubt, Charles Reece Gaddy was a North Carolina native.
Born Sept. 17, 1931, in the small town of Biscoe in Montgomery County, northwest of Pinehurst, Gaddy spent 24 years at WRAL — 20 of them as the station’s lead anchor. He became one of the most respected and most beloved figures in the state.
He graduated from Guilford College and served two years in the U.S. Army, before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1960. After a brief stint as an Arthur Murray Dance instructor, Gaddy landed a job with NBC News, where he met and soon married Nancy Rankin.
‘In hog heaven’ at NBC
Of his time at NBC — where he worked with Willard Scott and Wilmington native David Brinkley, interacted with brothers John and Robert F. Kennedy, and held up cue cards for Nikita Khrushchev during a televised speech — Gaddy told an AP reporter in 1999, “I was in hog heaven, but I was scared to death.”
“Once I got on the air, I wanted to stay on the air,” Gaddy said in the interview.
Gaddy worked for 10 years at WPTF-AM radio station in Raleigh, hosting a popular call-in show called “Ask Your Neighbor,” before finding his ideal professional home at WRAL. He started out there as host of a morning program called “Good Morning Charlie.”
Four years later, Gaddy joined the Capitol Broadcasting Company station’s evening news team — then called the Action News 5 team — as lead anchor. He was joined by Bobbie Battista, who later went on to anchor at CNN; weather man Bob DeBardelaben; and sports anchor Rich Brenner. (Battista died in March 2020).
Gaddy later shared the WRAL anchor desk with Adele Arakawa and sports anchor Tom Suiter.
Gaddy in the field
One of the most enduring memories of Gaddy’s time at WRAL didn’t happen behind an anchor desk, though.
When deadly tornadoes struck Raleigh in 1988, viewers saw Gaddy in the field, in blue jeans and a rain parka, reporting the news but also listening as still-stunned Raleighites told him of the terrors of the storm.
In one often-played clip, still remembered by a generation of central North Carolinians who watched WRAL News, Gaddy listens to a woman the morning after the tornado describe what happened to her and then simply says, “Well, I’m glad you got out.”
That single, sincere phrase felt like a comforting hug to to everyone watching.
Gaddy retired from WRAL on July 1, 1994, when he was just shy of 63 years old.
He is a member of the North Carolina Broadcasters Hall of Fame and a recipient of the MidSouth Emmy Silver Circle Award, presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Gaddy was also a devoted volunteer, particularly for United Cerebral Palsy of North Carolina, hosting fundraising telethons and promoting the organization for years after his time on television ended. In honor of his public service, a child development center in Raleigh is named The Charlie Gaddy Childrens Center.
WRAL tributes
Friedrich said the station plans to honor the legacy Gaddy left for generations of journalists.
“Not just the people here, but the people he inspired to become journalists,” Friedrich said.
▪ WRAL will air a segment of “Tar Heel Traveler” from 2021, when Scott Mason visited Gaddy on his 90th birthday, at 5:55 p.m. on Thursday, June 12.
▪ Near the top of Thursday’s 6 p.m. newscast, a roundtable of journalists who knew and worked with Gaddy will share memories.
This story was originally published June 12, 2025 at 5:03 PM.
