HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Longtime local broadcaster and public relations executive Bos Johnson died Sunday, according to WSAZ.

Johnson retired in 2005 after a 53-year career in communications.

His first 28 years were spent in commercial broadcasting, 24 of those with WSAZ-TV Charleston-Huntington.

As television news came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, Johnson played the same role for the Tri-State that CBS television news anchor Walter Cronkite did on the national stage, Jim Casto, retired associate editor of The Herald-Dispatch, wrote in an article for Huntington Quarterly.

“The authoritative Cronkite covered the big stories of the day – the Vietnam War, Watergate, the slayings of President John F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In much the same reassuring fashion, Johnson detailed for WSAZ’s viewers the region’s big stories,” Casto wrote.

It was his voice that repeatedly interrupted regular programming on the long night of Nov. 14, 1970, and his face that mirrored the sorrow felt by the community as he kept viewers informed after a plane crash that claimed 75 Marshall University football players, coaches and fans.

Johnson once said the Marshall plane crash was by far the “saddest” news story of his eventful career.

“I don’t really understand how I was able to do it now,” Johnson told The Herald-Dispatch…