http://www.katu.com/news/17353059.html

Best weather guy in Portland's history!

Saddened to hear this. Jim was a great guy and totally understood how screwed up TV management/ownership was. The weather room at KATU at the time we both were there was this little long and narrow closet near the engineering workshop, and Jim was always passing through and frequently stopping to lend us his take on the latest non-decisions circulating along mahogany row. So many folks in TV I met were extremely difficult to work with, but Jim Bosley was nothing like that at all.
RIP

God bless you, Boz.

I met him while doing a spot on AM Northwest. I was a radio guy PETRIFIED to be on TV. His humor put me at ease. Thanks, Jim.

definitely one of the inspirations for my interest in media...he'll be missed

When my wife and I were a featured couple on AM Northwest Jim treated us and those that worked with him with respect. We still have a picture of us after the show with Jim and Mary on the set.

I had the pleasure of learning from Jim. He was one of the reasons why I went into broadcasting. He was always a nice guy and would go out of his way to help you with any issues. I will miss him.

I never formally met " the Boz ". But once, about 1978 I was in the old Pilgrim Health Foods store around NE someplace over by Hollywood I think. It was a Saturday and he came in with what I assumed was a daughter about 12 or so. They were both dressed up in Little league uniforms, same team of course. He must have been a coach/dad. They bought some trail mix and Hansen's pop...looked like they were having FUN !! I didnt say anything to him , I dont believe in buggin' people like that, I would not make a good Paparatzi.

That was unusual for a girl to be playing Little League at that time. So that is what I will take with me as a rememberance of 'The Boz "....

He’s the very first weatherman I can remember. As a young kid growing up in Vancouver, we watched KATU News. My earliest memory of the Boz was the black and white satellite photos he would use during his weather forecasts. With his black marker, he would draw the locations of weather fronts on the satellite photos.

I wasn’t much of an AMNW watcher, but I will always associate him with the program.

Best wishes to his family.

class act..First class.

EXCELLENT guy! So sorry to hear the loss. Always missed him after his departure from the airwaves. Now he gets to read the TP at whatever speed he wants! GOD BLESS THE BOZ, go rest in peace!

I hate to admit that there are very few people in my life that I actually remember the very first time we met. Jim Bosley is one of them. I was a very young man working my first gig in Portland at KPAM-FM in the early 70s. Wally Rossman was throwing a party for Portland's movers and shakers at the station, high-rollers in the business community and I was running my show trying to diplomatically keep the drunks out of the studio. At one point I had desperately to go to the bath room and stuck my head out to see a line stretching around the lobby. You have to remember this was in the day of three minute records and no recorded jingles where we were talking between each song. Just as I was about to close the door and was thinking about using a coffee cup, I heard this voice boom across the room, telling me I was next to use the facility, as he "parted the waves" and told the person inside to hurry up, a "working man" needed access to the facility. It was some time later that I was able to shake hands with and formally meet one of the nicest men I've ever met, Jim Bosley.

"The Boz" is missed.

David Shult

I worked with "Boz" at the "duce" for a sort time. He was very glib. He didn't take his job seriously and it certainly showed on air. He was funny and an out spoken man. I am sure that in his first conversation with God, he asked if there could be something done about all the spring rain we get in the northwest.

It is really hard to think of a tv talent around Portland today that comes close to the impact Boz had back then.

If some think Jim didn't take his job seriously, I think they don't understand that Jim understood television for what it is... or what it should be... and that's just people communicating with people.

Jim was always on the air with something to share, whether it's doing the 5pm weather or sitting in the chair with Margie or Mary or Rebecca.

Jim either liked you or he didn't like you, and that really depended on you. We got along great. Fabulous sense of humour and a hearty laugh. His eyes sparkled during fun stuff and he had a joy for living.

I did the news with Jim on AMNW for quite a few years and I really enjoyed working with him during KATU's best era.

BTW Jim and I are both Queen Anne Grizzlies.

Brooks,

I should have written that Jim did not take himself seriously...stead "job seriously"..

regrets

was the bosrelated(rother?) to tom Bosley(happy days Mr. Cunningham??

That was a great story David ! Shows what a good hearted 'pro' Bosely was !

The impression I got of Jim Bosley from just seeing him on TV for the 13 years I lived and worked in Portland was that he was a beloved long-time media fixture. And like any good old-school weathercaster who developed his style in the 1960’s, he had a gimmick, Rate The Day. But just seeing him on TV, I thought he was not especially exciting. Just sort of tolerating the other people on the news set, doing his own thing. He was the seasoned guy, been there forever, and had seen so many of the air-talent come and go. Figured the no-so-exciting thing was his long accepted style, and when you are a beloved long-time fixture, you can get away with almost anything.

Then I got to meet him.

Sometime in the 1990’s while I was doing middays on KXL-FM in one of many format incarnations, John Williams was one of many morning men that passed through, and we appeared on AM Northwest to promote something. I don’t remember what, it doesn’t matter. That day, before our turn on the guest-couch, when I was introduced to Jim Bosley, I felt like I was in the presence of Mick Jagger or some other huge rock star. He was absolutely charismatic. He was also completely charming in the most sincere way. I could not believe this was the same guy on TV who seemed so flat. Bosley was warm, hip and funny, and it was cool to connect as broadcasters. And that’s where the connection was, for me anyway. On the air, he made us feel welcome and comfortable. It was a great experience, and over in the blink of an eye.

That observation illustrates well that what you can see of a person on the tube isn't all they are, and suggests that charm, charisma and/or graciousness behind the scenes may be as much or more important as that visible on-air. (I'm still embarrassed that I thought so poorly of Richard Ross, for example, only learning very belatedly of what all he did, because his on-air performance always struck me as weird. Maybe he was in fact camera-nervous, if not camera-shy.)

Which brings to mind a thought that might make a viable thread of its own: Is one's actual personality more or less discernible on TV than on radio? I.e., is it easier to maintain a persona unseen behind the mike, or is a voice without the distraction of appearance and body language (if perhaps only over the long run) actually more revealing?

Considering the weight television carries in today's politics, this isn't just an idle musing; the legend that "Nixon won the 1960s debates per the radio audience" is but one example that comes to mind. The out-takes reveal how very awkward he felt on-camera; he was actually startled by a glimpse of his own image on a monitor during set-up.

(Highly dynamic personalities do wear out sooner on TV than radio; Hugh Downs attributed his long career to his comfortable ordinariness, which one could perhaps extend to Cronkite, etc.; on the other hand, how many hours of televised Robin Williams or Steve Martin could a sane person endure?)

When I lived in Seattle a couple decades ago I was struck by a print review lauding Almost Live's John Kiester's ability to appear as "a normal human being on TV," something the author found fascinating and felt is seldom seen, and I'd agree.

Well, that's pretty deep for this board, with its trolls and Marlows and such, but I'll say this: for all of the superficial preparation that goes into television, it's still personality that either punches through, or not. Think of who really connects on the tube, and I'm not talking about hotness. I'm talking about human-to-human communication. Jim Bosley was definitely one. When I'd been around him, he'd laugh and cuss and call bullshit and be a guy, and on TV he was very nearly exactly that way. We've had others, where looks were exceeded by an intangible human element, and not just in the olden days. Channel 8's Stephanie Stricklen absolutely pours through the screen. She's a future star.

Radio--same deal. Somehow projecting your humanity in a person-to-person way is the essence of communication. That's what transformed Craig Walker from the world's slickest midday jock into Portland's radio-mayor-for-life.

There are others who I won't embarrass. Of course looks are huge on television and voice is still important on radio, though pipes are out, I'm told. But the ability to transmit yourself, or a tuned-up professional facsimile thereof, is what puts some people over the top.

Had a nice conversation about Bosley this week with Bill Schonely when he was in studio for a recording session.

He and Boz were good friends. At one point lived on the lake in Oswego and would take their kids out on the lake and just be dads.

Schonz will be one the speakers at Bosely's memorial service and share a story about when Jim and Bill were both on the air at KATU. Schonz did sports for a short time then would hustle over to the MC and do the Blazers and then hustle back to KATU and do the sports report for the 11pm newscast. On two occasions Schonz and Boz switched roles. Schonz doing weather and Boz doing sports. If that tape were in anyone's vault I'd pay to see it.

Seems Bosely was in pretty bad health at the end. Schonz counts him and his wife and family as close friends.

To be honest....He really missed being on Television. He was the most natural TV guy of all. Depression set in when he left or they made the Boz exit for a younger face.

As a kid, I remember thinking this was one of the most solid and happy people on TV.

Be well Boz!

Bosley didn't miss television so much that he'd be willing to return. KGW tried to lure him from retirement for occasional work several years ago. He thought about it and said, Naaaaah...Fiji beckons...

Here's one of those strange coincidences. I've been going through my old radio ephemera and came across this old KUPL tape label for some PSAs promoting the Open Heart Open. Boz is in some good company there.

KUPL tape label

Well never met him but Jeff from Koin did a great tribute to his word and Koin allowing his say on air ty. As we are creative being their is a line learned on the job experence the line of greatness... To bad schooling G was right where you can learn on the job then in the classroom (I thank both...) As techno green screen's Bozzz was eh 10 in the film of life... He in teaching others the field and his job in his creative sway and screen bits on TV....

I was a news film photographer stringer for KATU Television Two in the 70's, but usually was in the newsroom on the weekends, when others were doing the weather. But once during a college class tour, Boz was there to shoot a promo for the weathercasts, which involved him in a space suit floating and supered over the infamous satelite picture that showed the perfect low pressure cel heading toward Oregon. Jim had used the satelite image to become the only Portland weather guy to predict a snow storm that had suddenly hit Portland, and KATU promotions was making the most of it. He was funny and really nice to us college kids. This was before the moving satelite loops were available. KATU's engineering department was full of ham radio operators who liked to build things. They had somewhere found a surplus drum thermal fax printer, which they got working and hooked up to a receiver, which is why KATU was the only station in town at the time to have these images as part of the weather cast. The only problem they had with it at the time was picking up some electrical noise from the Janzen factory next door, that used a lot of high speed sewing machines.

I remember that Jim started at KATU filling-in for Kirby Brumfield, and called his segment....The Adult Weather Forecast....since most of the competitors preferred a serious acedemic-scientific approach to the weather reports, Jim was an immediate hit....He had, though, spent some time early-on with the weather pros, learning how to read the charts and interpret the information.

Matt Zaffino posted a fond memory of Bosley in his Wx blog, which I only just ran across:

http://www.beloblog.com/KGW_Blogs/weather/archives/2008/04/remembering_jim.html

Being out of town, I'm slow to get this news. Very sad. Bosley was so great and so funny. Knowing I needed serious help filling in for Craig W on K103(1989-ish?), during a winter weather situation, I called Bosley and asked him to do a phoner the next day. He couldn't have had any idea who I was but agreed to the phoner and was so funny the next morning describing the low-pressure system as a "big fat lady just sitting on us." He did another segment a few days later and saved my bacon for a second time. Love ya, Boz.