WSB Radio’s Pete Combs Remembered As A Reporter’s Reporter
Flowers flank the podium at Mayes-Ward-Dobbins Funeral Home in Powder Springs. Friends, family and co-workers shared memories of Combs, who passed a few months after being diagnosed with lung cancer.
Jim Burress/WABE
Friends, family and Atlanta radio listeners are mourning the loss of longtime reporter Pete Combs. He was laid to rest Thursday, a week after he died.
Early in his career, Combs reported for Atlanta’s WGST-AM before crossing the country and finding a place in numerous newsrooms. But for the past decade, Combs’ deep and distinctive voice was a staple on WSB radio.
A “reporter’s reporter” who made a lasting and positive impression on those he met, including me.
Pete, like me, loved airplanes. We’re both pilots. So when we first met more than a decade ago working on — you guessed it — an aviation story, we had lots to talk about.
But Pete always had a lot to talk about, because he usually wanted to talk about you. His empathy and compassion came across when he told stories.
To know Pete was to understand he was a story teller. It was just part of him.
“He had this energy and enthusiasm that was infectious,” says Kristi Swartz, who about seven years ago was a reporter on the AJC’s breaking news desk. That, at the time, was housed in WSB’s radio newsroom. She and Pete sat back to back. And one day,” Pete started saying something about a plane landing on the highway,” she remembers.
They jumped in the car together, “got caught in a little traffic jam on the way, and had to slam on the brakes because we were both looking at the plane on the side of the highway, Swartz recalls. “And when you’re doing that, who’s driving?”
They quickly decided Pete would drive. Kristi would look.
They both reported on it.
“I don’t think any of this was just a job,” Swartz adds. “It was all heart and soul for him. And he was so passionate.”
At Combs’ memorial Thursday in Powder Springs, CBS Radio Peter King spoke of that passion in his colleague.
“He had heart, soul, he cared about relationships. And I am pretty sure I can safely say ‘Nobody didn’t like Pete,’ King said.
For WSB’s newsroom,”It’s been tough,” says anchor and reporter Edgar Treiguts. He says Combs absence after a lung cancer diagnosis a few months ago has left a noticeable void in the newsroom.
“For a lot of us, we’ve had trouble believing that he was going through this. And then when it became clear this was’t going to be a fight he could win, I think for a lot of us it’s just hard to grapple with that,” says Treiguts. “But understanding that we had the chance to work with him was pretty special.”
Pete Combs was 60 years old and an Air Force veteran. He leaves behind a wife, a son, two stepchildren, and a lot of reporters who see him as the finest example of the craft.
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