KCRG-TV9’s Dave Franzman retires after 40 years

Ten thousand stories.

Give or take, that's how many daily news packages Dave Franzman has covered during his 40-year career as a reporter for KCRG-TV9.

From his first day on Sept. 11, 1978, when editors sent him to cover a bottle rocket science experiment at Franklin Middle School, to his last day Friday, Franzman has reported Eastern Iowa's stories.

'My absolute favorite story of all time was wing walking,” said Franzman, 65.

Earl Cherry, a stunt pilot who visited Cedar Rapids for a 1986 air show, let Franzman take a turn strapped to a post on the top of the biplane. Wearing a white jacket, cap and goggles, Franzman soared through the air, waving to the camera on the ground.

'That's what I loved about this job,” Franzman said. 'You get to do stuff that other people can't. And you get to know stuff before other people.”

Franzman, who grew up in Indiana, came to Cedar Rapids at age 25 after spending three years reporting in Huntsville, Ala.

When he started in the business, TV crews hit the streets with two-way radios and pockets of coins for pay phones because there were no cellphones to reach sources or editors. They recorded on film, which had to be developed and later edited by cutting and gluing or taping the segments together, Franzman said.

'As a small station, we weren't always on the cutting edge of the video stuff,” he said.

Franzman enjoyed meeting politicians, recalling how he connected with former President Barack Obama, then a senator campaigning in Eastern Iowa, about how Franzman's daughter's roommate was an Obama coordinator. But the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses has changed, with events becoming bigger and less personal.

'It used to be 50 farmers in a machine shed,” Franzman said. 'Now, in recent caucuses, there are all the handlers and the security stuff.”

The 2008 flood, when the Cedar River inundated 10 square miles of Cedar Rapids, was the major reporting event of Franzman's career, he said. He remembers accompanying firefighters gliding down a flooded First Avenue in a rescue boat when a call came from a woman who wanted them to evacuate her and a large German shepherd.

'Ever tried to convince a German shepherd to jump off a roof into a boat?” Franzman asked. 'Strange things like that are what you remember.”

Ron Corbett was a frequent Franzman interview subject as Corbett served as Iowa House speaker, Chamber of Commerce president and then Cedar Rapids mayor. A late-1990s interview happened just after Corbett and his family moved into a new house and just before Corbett became speaker.

'He did a funny story, something like ‘Before Corbett can get the Iowa House in order he has to get his own house in order,'” Corbett said. 'It just shows how much he's been covering Cedar Rapids and Eastern Iowa area. He's seen every issue for the last 30 years up front.”

Television reporters often complete three-year contracts and move on, but Franzman and his wife, Lana, bought a house in Robins, raised two children, Bethany and Mike, and invested in the community.

Franzman, known to many in the media by his self-given nickname of F-Man, is known for covering just about any story without fuss or ego. He loves puns, does a straightforward '1,2,3,4,5” when testing his microphone and always, always sits on the tails of his jacket so it doesn't wrinkle.

He had this advice for young reporters.

'Don't become enamored of the technology,” he said. 'There's something to be said for shoe leather. Don't forget the other things that make up reporting.”

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