SAN DIEGO — As much as CBS 8 loves and appreciate every viewer, it's not often we come face to face with our most loyal viewer of all time. In this Zevely Zone, I went to Scripps Ranch to meet CBS 8's number one fan.
A few weeks ago, CBS 8 Managing Editor Barb Richards and I aired a story about an old newspaper that someone donated to the USS Midway Museum. The headlines from that paper covered the opening of KFMB TV. Channel 8 became San Diego's first TV station on Sunday, May 15, 1949.
Following that story, our phone immediately rang.
"I can't really tell you a whole lot, remember, I was 13-years-old," said Sheila Donigan.
The 85-year-old Scripps Ranch resident does remember the day her father announced they were buying a television and she said, "What's that? Hey, we didn't have that stuff and we were poor, and TVs were really expensive."
I showed Sheila the old newspaper that she spotted on CBS 8. "Cool. Wow, the good old days!", said Sheila who told me she watched CBS 8 on a ten-inch television set.
"You had to turn the lights down in the apartment to get a good picture. It was only 10 inches," said Sheila. The screen may have been small, but Sheila's favorite show was a big deal back then.
It's a show that was well before my time in the early 1950s. "Smokey Rogers, you didn't know of Smokey Rogers?" asked Sheila. "They were the 'it' thing in country-western music."
Sheila loved KFMB so much, she took a tour of our operation. "It was bare-bones," said Sheila. Scripps Ranch was barebones once too. Sheila's family was the first to move there in 1969. They had no neighbors for an entire year. "No schools, no stores, no police, no fire, no nothing," said Sheila who still lives in the same house.
But Sheila did have Channel 8 and we thank her for relying on and enjoying what we love to do for more than seven decades. "I still watch Channel 8, yes I do. It's my favorite channel and nobody paid me a penny so it's a-okay," said Sheila.
Sheila has watched it all. Bob Dale once hosted the popular show Zoorama. In the 1960's, San Diegans woke up in the morning with the show SunUp San Diego and watched the news with notable anchors such as Harold Keen and Ray Wilson. "Harold Keen was my favorite," said Sheila.
Rachael Welch and Regis Philbin also graced our air along with so many famous faces that followed such as Michael Tuck, Allison Ross and Ted Leitner. KFMB TV plans on preserving the old paper in our archives for many years to come.
Sheila Donigan is 85 years old. She says age is just a number and she remains young at heart.
WATCH RELATED: Anonymous donor discovers newspaper from 1949 when KFMB TV first opened