Goddard will retire in November

Dick Goddard, after 55 years on Cleveland TV as a weatherman, will retire in November. The ballyhooed announcement was made on Wednesday's WJW-Channel 8 newcast.

Dick Goddard

Goddard, 85, began in Cleveland in 1961 and at WJW in 1966.

He will focus exclusively on animal welfare.
 

Actually, Goddard has been easing his way out the door for years. 

 Meteorologists Melissa Mack, Andre Bernier, Scott Sabol and A.J. Colby have been assuming more and more of his duties.

There’s one area where Goddard will never retire, as long as he’s alive: Promoting animal welfare.

"Helping the four-foots is my goal in life," Goddard told PD and former BJ entertainment critic Mark Dawidziak.

The Akron native is a Green High School graduate who received his earliest weather training in the Air Force, where he handled forecasts for America's atomic testing in the Pacific.

Then he worked toward his Kent State graduation while broadcasting National Weather Service reports from Akron-Canton Regional Airport.

He began on KYW-Channel 3 (now WKYC) in 1961, moved to Philadelphia for a few months in 1965, then returned to Cleveland when he didn’t feel the Brotherly Love in Pennsylvania.

He signed with WJW in 1966.

And the legend began.

Medina County resident Goddard also was a Cleveland Browns statistician for home games and created the Woolybear Festival in Vermilion in 1973.