Bob Sevey, known as the "Walter Cronkite of Hawai'i" during his two decades as anchor of the top TV newscast in the state, died yesterday in Olympia, Wash. He was 81.

The former news director and anchorman at KGMB Channel 9 had battled cancer for more than two years. He was given just months to live when he was first diagnosed, but he surpassed doctors' expectations and lived long enough to attend a reunion in Hawai'i last year and say goodbye to many of the people he worked with and mentored over the years.

Sevey was considered one of the most trusted and respected journalists in the state. He retired from KGMB in July 1986 and moved to Washington state with his wife a few years later.

Former co-anchor Bob Jones said that although Sevey has not been on local television for more than 20 years, the reputation that he built has, and will, live on.

"Long after TV viewers in Hawai'i have forgotten the names of the rest of us who have been news anchors here, they'll remember Sevey," Jones said. "He was the most trusted, authoritative figure we've ever had on TV news."

Jones said he didn't always see eye-to-eye with Sevey, but said he never questioned Sevey's integrity.

"He built the best TV newsroom Hawai'i has had. He hired journalistic talent, not performers," Jones said. "If hirees became performers, it was after they were hired for their journalism."

One of Sevey's early hires was a young woman from the Pacific Northwest named Linda Coble. Coble came to Hawai'i in 1969 and worked at Channel 4 for a couple of years before being lured to KGMB.

Coble said Sevey reluctantly hired her.

"He was never into having women in broadcasting. He never believed in it," she said. "But he realized they were getting popular and stole me away, and I'll never be more grateful."

Although he didn't like the idea of women in television news, Sevey made sure the ones who he hired were well-trained journalists.

"He was a teacher," Coble said. "I don't think I would have been as credible as a female anchor or reporter as I was without his guidance. We in the early years of broadcasting who were breaking that ceiling were very fortunate to have mentors, and Sevey was the best."

And for a gruff newsman who didn't like the idea of women in the newsroom, Sevey surely hired his share. After Coble, many successful female journalists followed, such as Bambi Weil, Leslie Wilcox, Elisa Yadao and Tina Shelton.

Weil, known now as state Circuit Judge Eden Hifo, had little broadcast news experience when Sevey hired her in 1970.

Hifo said she received "OTJ" (on-the-job training) and that Sevey was the perfect teacher. She said he taught her about fairness, accuracy and owning up to mistakes.

Hifo said she has taken much of what she's learned to her job as a judge.

"That's a big circle in my life for recognizing there's always at least two sides to every story and that it's important to get as much information as you can and to be able to interact with people from the community as perspective jurors and witnesses who are always under stress when they come here," she said.

Hifo said she kept in touch with Sevey and his wife, Rosalie, over the years and said she will miss him dearly.

"His loss is felt no doubt by so many more of us than those who were graced to work with him and around him because we all have him as a memory," Hifo said. "It really is so a reflection of the true spirit of our people to continue to admire and love him and hold him in their hearts, all of us."

Coble said Sevey was much more than just a boss, he was a friend who cared about his reporters outside of the newsroom. After her father died, Sevey arranged for Coble to audition for an anchor position at a TV station in Portland, Ore., so she could be closer to her mother.

Coble eventually returned to the Islands and was rehired at KGMB. When she married TV reporter and anchor Kirk Matthews in 1984, Sevey walked Coble down the aisle.

"He took care of people. He paid attention to the personal lives of his reporters, to the professional ethics of his reporters, to the future of his reporters," Coble said. "He was a coach. He was a mentor. He was a dad. He was a standard we all lived up to."

Coble and Matthews visited Sevey last year at his home in Olympia. Despite being under hospice care and looking after his wife, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, Sevey remained upbeat and in control.

"He was making sure the transportation was right for him so that he didn't impact anybody else's life. He was independent," Coble said. "We watched golf on TV, went gambling with his walker and his cane. The guy was just living it to the max."

Sevey was born in Minneapolis and raised there and in Iowa. He attended Iowa State College, where he got his first media job at a local radio station.

He moved to California and was a sportscaster at a radio station in Santa Barbara while attending the University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduating in 1951, Sevey worked as a production assistant for CBS television in Los Angeles and then as an announcer/director for a TV station in Phoenix.

The program director there moved to Hawai'i to help launch a new television station — KULA, which became KHVH and then KITV — and asked Sevey to join him and be the production manager.

Sevey worked at the station for three years until it was sold. He joined a local advertising agency until 1959, when a friend who worked at KULA moved to KGMB and asked Sevey to be his new station manager.

Within a year, however, KGMB was sold and Sevey and other executives at the station developed philosophical differences with the new owners. In July 1961, Sevey and several others were fired.

Sevey held various jobs with the Hawai'i Visitors Bureau and KHVH radio. One day, the anchorman at KHVH-TV became ill and Sevey was asked to fill in. That led to Sevey's appointment as permanent anchor and eventually the station's news director.

He left the station in December 1965 and joined another local advertising agency. In the meantime, KGMB was purchased by a little-known entrepreneur named Cec Heftel, who kept approaching Sevey to join the station as its new anchor and news director.

Sevey said he ignored Heftel's advances, but the man was very persistent.

"I didn't know him, and I didn't respond to his offers," Sevey said in a 1986 interview. "But he was very persistent — he even came to talk to me at my kid's T-ball games."

Sevey eventually gave in and joined Channel 9 on July 1, 1966.