Dave Munsey doesn't normally use a handkerchief, but he's started carrying one around recently. It's because he knows it won’t be easy saying goodbye.

In April, the good-humored weather anchor announced that he was planning to retire from Channel 10 (KSAZ) after 42 years at the station. That’s the longest stretch at one channel for any news personality currently on the air in Phoenix.

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Since then, Munsey hasn’t stopped hearing from viewers past and present. They tell him what he’s meant to them and their families. They talk about the times they met him, and how friendly he was. Sometimes, they tell anecdotes even he’s forgotten.

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For example, years ago Munsey did a broadcast from a touring circus. Later that evening, he was at a Circle K. A customer said she saw him at the circus. They engaged in small talk.

“Were you at the circus?” he asked.

“Oh no,” she responded. “I could never afford to take my family.”

It turns out she would have needed eight tickets to go the big top. He took her name and number and made arrangements for the family to attend for free. The woman’s son even was chosen to announce the start of the circus.

“Thirty years later, I’m reading about this on Facebook from one of the kids,” Munsey says. “Oh my God, I just started crying. He's all grown-up now, and he was writing about it. It just really touched me.”

He doesn’t do a very good job of fighting back the tears.

“That’s what I’m going to miss,” he says. “I’m going to miss it dearly.”

Mid-America roots

Munsey came to Arizona in his 20s and landed at KOOL (94.5 FM). He joined Channel 10 in 1975, and stayed.

His homespun, Mid-America appeal — he hails from North Dakota — endeared him to viewers in a city full of people who arrived from somewhere else. He never took their loyalty for granted.

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“I never forgot that I had an audience,” he says. “I never forgot that the camera represented someone. It’s not just a hunk of metal. I never forgot that I was from Jamestown, North Dakota. I was never a big shot; I was just a guy that had a really good job.”

And while he says he only has a few friends off-camera, he seems naturally gregarious. He'll always take time to shake hands and visit with viewers. His wife, Bunny, likes to tease him that he’d walk through a crowd before he’d walk around it.

“And she’s right,” he acknowledges.

He always enjoys hearing from viewers. When he was younger, he'll joke, viewers would send him bola ties; as he grew older, it became pamphlets on hair-restoration techniques.

"I always tell people the worst part of my job was doing my job," he says. "And I love doing my job!"

Munsey recently was talking to a friend who left the business, and he said, half-jokingly, "But what about the adulation?"

“You can’t be in this business without being a little bit of an egomaniac," he says, laughing. "It’s part of the makeup of the type of human being that does this kind of work."

'Watch your kids'

Perhaps the most rewarding part of the whole career has been his water-safety campaign, in which he reminds viewers to “watch your kids around water.” It’s given him a catchphrase, something few other local TV news personalities can claim. Munsey being Munsey, he’s not even territorial about it.

“I tell people: Please, feel free, use it,’” he says. “We’re trying to save children’s lives here. That’s the idea. I don’t care how people get the message. Another channel here used it for a while; there was nothing done or said about it.”

The long-running campaign always has been close to his heart. A friend of his lost a child in a drowning accident. The child who died had been supervised by another youngster. Then the first person who reached the child didn't know how to administer CPR.

“When I went to work the next day, I thought to myself I have the ability to do something here,” he says. “I have eyes and ears that watch and listen to me.”

So he began making personal appearances and handing out coloring books and stickers. He still makes the appearances, but dropped the freebies.

"I'm going to hand a kid with an iPhone a coloring book?" he asks. "The kids are a little more blase now."

Still, for more than 35 years, his dedication has never wavered.

"I think that's what really kept me going," he says. "I got to give that message four times a day. That's a good thing."

Why retire?

A lot of people are asking why he's retiring. He says it's not complicated. On the business side of things, his contract will expire this year. And, quite simply, he thinks it's time.

“It’s not that I’m tired of doing it,” he says. “More that I’ve been doing it a long time and I’m going to be 70 in September. There is a time in this business, you know? I was telling one of the employees the other day that there are two ways to leave this business: You retire at the top or they drag your (rear) out the door. It’s a good feeling to be able to make the decision.”

He doesn't know what's next. He wants to keep his hand in water-safety, whether on his own or in some relationship with the station. And there are other options on the table.

“I’ve got six phone calls that want to offer me something,” he says. “I know what a couple of them are, and the others I’m not sure about. But the thing is I don’t even know if I want to continue working. I do want to slow down. I do want to take that nap. But I’m sure going to listen to whatever anyone has to say."

He's not quite sure what his mornings will be like. Munsey is known for his collection of high-end cowboy boots — he has 18 pairs — and his immaculate taste in suits, which are all specifically tailored for Western footwear.

"One of the first things I think of is what suit am I wearing today, then what boots I'm going to put with it," he says. "The boots may start to get a little dusty now."

His immediate plans include spending more time in North Dakota. His dad, who is 95, still lives there, within 100 miles of his 88-year-old mother-in-law. And he's looking forward to spending more time at home with his wife. He recounts something she recently said one morning.

"I'm a little upset," she said. "I don't know what I'm going to when I don't see you on TV anymore."

Someone else told him: "I never say, 'I'm going to watch the weather.' I say, 'I'm gonna watch Dave.'"

Recalling such instances makes Munsey start to choke up again. His last day on the air is June 1.

"A million people do the same thing that I'm going to do on the first of June," he says. "I just don't know if they loved their job as much as I do."

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Reach the reporter at randy.cordova@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova.

'Fox 10 News'

Dave Munsey's last broadcast will be 9 p.m. Thursday, June 1, on Channel 10.