Richard Dell Rosenbaum, retired ABC News executive, respected journalist and beloved husband and father, died at Georgetown Hospital, Washington, D.C., Saturday, Feb. 19, 2017, from complications following surgery. He was 76 years old.
Known to associates and close friends as both Dick and “Rosie,” he embodied the best qualities of a broadcast journalist in his 40-plus year career.
Born July 26, 1940, in Kansas City, Mo., he was predeceased by parents Fred and Dorcie Rosenbaum.
Rosenbaum hosted his first weekly radio programs at KVGB in Great Bend, Kansas, while still in high school. He attended Kansas State University and was employed as a newsreader/announcer on the campus radio station, KSAC and at KSDB-FM as a sportscaster. From these beginnings, he went on to KVOE, Emporia Kansas, KCKN Kansas City, Missouri, and KFEQ in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he was both a radio disc jockey and a television director
From 1962 to 1965, he was enlisted in the United States Army where he was an instructor in the Radio Television Department at the Department of Defense Information School and then assigned to the American Forces Network, Europe.
1965 began a storied career for Rosenbaum with ABC News, including assignments as Bureau Chief, Saigon, during the Vietnam War, Bureau Chief, Chicago, Illinois, West Coast Bureau Chief, Los Angeles, California, and Manager of News for the ABC News Information Radio Network. He won the Overseas Press Club Award in 1968 for coverage of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam.
In 1983, he was named Senior Producer for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in Washington, D.C., and later Director of Special Events, Radio News. As such, he was radio pool producer for presidential trips to China, Europe and Asia and was the producer for radio coverage of the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1984 and 1988, as well as Election Night coverage in 1986. In 1987, he was named General Manager, News Programming, overseeing all news and public affairs programming on all six full service ABC Radio Networks.
After seven years, Rosenbaum returned to Washington as Bureau Chief for ABC Radio and he retired from ABC in 2000, 35 years with the company, to enjoy volunteer opportunities serving as McLean Little League President and as PTA treasurer at both Haycock Elementary and Longfellow Middle Schools in McLean, Virginia.
Dick married Anne Eastman in 1987 and she survives him, along with four adored children: Peter Rosenbaum, Petra Rosenbaum Marino, Alex Rosenbaum and Chris Rosenbaum; and four grandchildren; Madison, Turner and Grant Rosenbaum and Ryan Marino. A brother and sister also survive him, Tom Rosenbaum and Nancy Rosenbaum Bonds, both of Arkansas.
Colleagues and friends described him as a first rate newsman, a “square shooter,” and a first class gentleman devoted to his wife and children.
A service of remembrance was held on Friday, Feb. 24, at 3 o’clock at Washington National Cathedral in the Great Choir, with the Rev. Canon John Kitagawa officiating. The family requests that gifts in his memory be directed to the School of Communications, Elon University, Elon, North Carolina (elon.edu/makeagift), or to The Focus Foundation (thefocusfoundation.org/) in lieu of flowers.