SALT LAKE CITY — Landing somewhere in the middle of longtime KSL-TV anchor Bruce Lindsay's 38-year journalism career was a stint in Los Angeles as a reporter with major market television broadcast station, KABC-TV.

The project that caught the attention of KABC was one that took Lindsay to the back roads of Utah in 1974. "On the Road" involved Lindsay, a '57 Chevy and Utah's landscape, à la Charles Kuralt.

"He did as well as Kuralt could have done it," said former KSL-TV news director Spencer Kinard. "…Had a real gift of speaking to all of us about things that resonated even though they weren't page-one kinds of news."

Those stories resonated with people outside of Utah viewers, too.

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Retiring anchorman Bruce Lindsay's introduction to journalism

Anchorman Bruce Lindsay will retire from KSL-TV this week, after more than 30 years with the company.

"Because I was doing feature stories in the hinterland up and down the state of Utah, we were able to sell a lot of those to a forerunner of CNN," Lindsay said.

After KABC hired Lindsay, they sent him out to interview celebrities, not exactly an area familiar to the reporter.

"I was not a big movie buff," Lindsay said. "I didn't know who these people were. …I was supposed to interview Vidal Sassoon on Rodeo Drive. I thought it was ‘Row-de-oh Drive, but it's ‘Row-day-oh in Beverly Hills."

"So I was kind of like the country bumpkin goes to Beverly Hills."

Later, he decided to pursue a graduate degree and he returned to Utah to the University of Utah and KSL-TV, where he has anchored evening newscasts continuously since 1978.

Lindsay, who retires this week, has been called to serve as president of the Australia Perth Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and will take his post in July.

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