DISTRICT LURES TV NEWSMAN OFF SET.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

And that's a wrap, people.

Wait a minute. Isn't this story just beginning? In a way, it is. But for KVAL-TV's Pat McGillivray, it's not likely you'll see him on your local television screen anymore. Not unless he's being interviewed - in his new position as community relations director for the

Bethel School District - by a former colleague or competitor.

After 23 years with the same station, this morning was McGillivray's last appearance on KVAL's Northwest News. That's two years short of a quarter-century, or nearly half the time Northwest News, which took to the airwaves in 1954, has been on the air.

The first 16 years of McGillivray's run at KVAL were as a sportscaster and the last seven as a news and feature reporter and anchor of the station's 6 a.m. morning news show.

His stint was the current longest continuous run of any on-air talent at one television station among Eugene's three national-network-affiliated local news stations: KVAL, KEZI and KMTR. And that is something that is becoming more and more rare in a market the size of Eugene-Springfield, where talent straight out of college or with only a few years of experience comes and goes before you even know their names.

"He's going to be sorely missed," said KVAL news anchor Shelley Kurtz, who arrived at the station about a year after McGillivray did in 1981. Kurtz will move from her 5 p.m. anchor spot to succeed McGillivray, 47, in the mornings beginning Monday, the same day McGillivray begins his new venture. "He is so capable in his reporting," Kurtz said.

A lifelong love affair with sports and a degree in broadcast communications from Washington State University led McGillivray, who grew up in Tacoma, into sports reporting at KNDU in Kennewick, Wash., in the late 1970s. A switch to news and features at KVAL in 1997, however, not only gave him more time to spend with his three children - now ages 15 to 19 - it gave him a starring role and several journalism awards as a storyteller.

"Pat is great at what he does," said Walt Fox, a former sportscaster at KVAL and McGillivray's roommate during their WSU days who recommended him to KVAL. "I don't think anybody was better at putting together a story," said Fox, now a history and journalism teacher at Marist High School.

Stories about a "head-to-head" competition between outhouse manufacturers. About bowling grandmas, a man who rides around Veneta in his homemade spaceship and 78-year-old newspaper carriers on electric scooters. About attacking blackbirds, cats up 80-foot trees and a Cadillac that changes colors.

"He's the best at feature reporting of anybody I've ever seen," said Doug Schwindt, a KVAL cameraman who has worked on many stories with McGillivray since he switched over from sports. "He just has a way. I don't know how we're going to replace him."

How McGillivray decided to switch careers and leave behind the bright lights of television after 25 years in the business is a serendipitous tale. He called Craig Hawkins, the former Bethel School District spokesman, in September to get comment for a story. But McGillivray was told Hawkins had left the district to take a position in Salem with the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators. He got a call back, however, from Tim Keeley, the district's assistant superintendent, who assumed McGillivray was calling to apply for the opening.

McGillivray said that wasn't the case. Well, would he like to apply, Keeley asked. The more McGillivray - who developed an interest in public education and teaching while volunteering at Eugene's McCornack Elementary School when his children attended there years ago - thought about it, the more he liked the idea of a change. He talked it over with his wife, Vickie, a speech therapist with the Creswell School District, then applied, interviewed and got the job. Not to mention a pay raise.

McGillivray wouldn't say what his salary at KVAL was, but he'll start at $60,000 a year in his new position. And it's no secret that media folks in a market the size of Eugene-Springfield don't make huge salaries, he said.

Alas, it won't be easy to leave today the place where he has spent almost half his life.

A place that holds many special memories and friends.

Nor will it be for others.

"I wake up every morning to him," said John Doyle, a retired KVAL news anchor who spent more than 40 years there and who hired McGillivray in 1981. "I'm going to miss him."

CAPTION(S):

KVAL's Pat McGillivray talks with cameraman Doug Schwindt during an assignment at radio station KWVA on the University of Oregon campus.