CLEVELAND — Joe Mosbrook, a longtime fixture at WKYC as a reporter, has passed away at the age of 91.
According to his son Charlie, Mosbrook "died peacefully in his his sleep at the David Simpson Western Reserve Hospice" on Tuesday morning.
A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Mosbrook arrived at WKYC in 1967 and would spend the next 35 years as a reporter for 3News. While viewers remember his legendary voice, Mosbrook was notable for covering many of Cleveland's important political figures, including mayors Carl Stokes, George Voinovich, and Dennis Kucinich.
In October of 1977, Mosbrook traveled with Charles, Prince of Wales, during the latter's historic visit to Cleveland. When Charles became King of England in 2022, Mosbrook reflected on that whirlwind day.
Mosbrook also became legendary for surviving the crash of the "Newshawk 3" helicopter during a blizzard in Ashtabula County in 1981.
"The helicopter started to take off. He (the pilot) moved around to get away from some wires and we were maybe 10 or 15 feet off the ground. And the helicopter just went over," Mosbrook recalled during WKYC's 50th Anniversary show in 1998.
Cleveland Seniors notes Mosbrook won the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and was also inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Science's Silver Circle, commemorating his over 25 years of outstanding service to Cleveland television. He was inducted into the Press Club of Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame in 2017.
"As important as he was to the community, he was so much more to his family. A celebrated journalist and jazz historian, his life as a father was what mattered most to him. He will be deeply missed," Charlie Mosbrook added in a post on Facebook.
In 2021, Mosbrook was honored as a legend by the Tri-C JazzFest.
"Joe Mosbrook turned his passion for jazz into a creative odyssey, documenting the rich and previously untold history of Cleveland jazz. His earliest writings, featured in the Northeast Ohio Jazz Society’s newsletters, were reformatted for radio at the request of NPR station, WCPN. His features, numbering nearly 1,700, have been broadcast weekly for the past 33 years," Tri-C said of Mosbrook, adding that he wrote two volumes of books titled "Cleveland Jazz History."
Mosbrook's family said it will share "details in the coming weeks for those who wish to celebrate his life."