Stan Atkinson was a television news reporter and anchor for over 45 years, mostly in the Sacramento area, including many years as the principal news anchor for KCRA, Channel 3, in Sacramento. and then principal news anchor for KOVR from 1994 until his retirement in 1999. He is considered one of the most popular news figures in Sacramento, the nation's 19th-largest television market, for more than 20 years. The Sacramento Bee called him "The Man Who Owns Sacramento."
He has remained tirelessly active in community affairs since retirement, helping raise money for charities and as TV/radio spokesperson for a number of companies. He is also a partner in a very busy video production company ATY Media Productions.
Career highlights
Atkinson is a reporter who regularly travelled to the world's most turbulent places to bring a deeper insight to the local evening news. He covered 18 countries-in-crisis in 31 assignments. As well, his work was often featured on national television.
Atkinson studied journalism at Pasadena City College prior to U.S. Army service during the Korean War in the early 1950s. He was an instructor on Fort Ord’s faculty teaching 20,000 trainees and rapidly rising to the rank of Sergeant. He was one of 25 (out of 200) reporters selected for the prestigious Ford Foundation Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University in 1967.
He has been chased down by a Soviet helicopter gunship in Afghanistan (he was there twice, in 1982 and 1985), plus held up and robbed by leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, and shot at in Cambodia.
In January 1996, Atkinson covered the presence of U.S. Forces in Bosnia. In May 1997 he made his ninth trip to Hong Kong since 1961 to report on the historic reunification with Communist China.
He has slipped across Marxist-controlled borders with resistance fighters to produce documentaries in Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, and Central America.
Atkinson reported from Baghdad just before Operation Desert Storm began, and from Kuwait a month after it was liberated. In October 1993, just after the downing of two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters, and the resultant withdrawal of American forces, he covered the collapse of a nation into anarchy in his reports from Somalia.
In April 1994, Atkinson covered the remarkable transition of South Africa, as their citizens voted in the country's first all-race, democratic election. That was his third assignment in South Africa since 1984.
Atkinson also has a long history with Vietnam. He was there twice - in 1961 and 1962 - when it was still "The Dirty Little War" in the south. His documentary, "The Village That Refused to Die," told the story of fighting priest Father Nguyễn Lạc Hoá and his village of Binh Hung, who were fighting back against the Viet Cong.
In 1987, he took former Green Beret Captain - B.T. Collins - back to Vietnam. They were the first Americans to drive through the country since the war. They traveled from Hanoi to the Delta, to the very spot where Collins lost an arm and a leg in an ambush 20 years before. Atkinson later joined Collins as a principal fundraiser who helped raise money to erect the $2.2 million California Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the State Capitol grounds.
He has won three Emmys for each of his two assignments inside Afghanistan, and another for a documentary he produced while covering Somalia in 1981.
Atkinson is the 1989 winner of the George Washington Medal for Individual Achievement from the Freedom Foundation in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He is also a recipient of the World Affairs Council Award for International Reporting, and the Albert and Mary Lasker Award for Medical Journalism.
Community volunteer service
He still resides in Sacramento and contributes to the community.
Atkinson, through his Stan Atkinson Foundation, has partnered with the Sacramento River Cats baseball team and the East Sacramento Rotary to raise funds to build River Cat's Independence Field, a multi-use sports and recreation facility for disabled youth and adults. The project centers on a specially-applied surface, which provides traction but is soft, thus preventing injuries during softball, basketball, soccer, or tag football games.
He was co-founder and host of the Stan Atkinson Golf Classic for its five-year run. The event, in partnership with the Stan Atkinson Foundation, raised more than $300,000 for five area community causes.
Atkinson also served the Gold Rush Classic, an annual stop on the Senior PGA Tour, as tournament director-community relations and as a member of the Classic’s Board of Directors.