To Sacramento, Stan Atkinson was the face of news. To his daughter, he was ‘Pop’
Stan Atkinson was seemingly larger than life.
Sacramento Bee reporter Bob Sylva called the longtime Sacramento news anchor “the man who owns Sacramento” in a 1986 profile. It stuck.
After Atkinson died Sunday, May 25, from natural causes at age 92, as reported the next day by both his former Sacramento stations — Channel 3 (KCRA) and Channel 13 (KOVR) — the larger-than-life figure, known for his charitable work and warm demeanor almost as much as his hard-hitting journalism, was mourned and celebrated.
U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, called Atkinson a “Sacramento Icon” in a statement Tuesday and praised his journalistic integrity and on-screen charisma.
On national TV, “NBC Nightly News” host Lester Holt, who interned at KCRA in 1979 during Atkinson’s tenure, said he looked up to Atkinson while at KCRA and called him an inspiration for his career.
“He embodied all the things that I always thought an anchorman should be about,” Holt said on-air last week in his final days hosting the program. “He had a warmth, he had a direct style, he had a sense of experience and he really brought it together. I’ll miss him.”
But beyond his status as an icon, inspiration or news anchor, to his daughter Sarah Atkinson, he was just “Pop.”
Taught daughter importance of community
While her visits with the news anchor were limited to a few days a month when she was younger, Sarah Atkinson treasured the time with her father and she wasn’t keen on sharing, she wrote in a response to a Sacramento Bee request for people to share their recollections of him.
In particular, she recalled a visit when she was 12-years-old that involved many of the charity, community and club events that were often a part of their time together. More so than a typical night, she wrote, “complete strangers” continuously approached her father to have a quick chat, interrupting their father-daughter bonding. At the time, she thought it was rude.
When the 12-year-old confronted him about the interruptions, he responded by saying he was honored when a Sacramento resident took the time to talk to him and called community members his bosses — and inspiration to do his job.
“He told me no one person is more important than another and while he loved me with all his heart, these people mattered deeply to him,” Sarah Atkinson wrote in the response. “That experience taught me we are nothing without community and being gracious and grateful are core characteristics of (being) truly happy and accomplished people.”
Old friend looks back fondly
To his high school friend Jack Jennings, 91, Atkinson — who was known as “Sandy” at the time — was a tall, skinny boy who was so charismatic he could turn foe into friend. Literally.
Jennings recalled a moment during their junior year of high school when a football player suddenly knocked him to the ground. Jennings, who was self-admittedly prone to fights in his younger years, was ready to fight. But, after just a few words from Atkinson, they were “a part of the gang,” Jennings said.
“He had a very friendly demeanor. People liked him,” Jennings said. “I may have been a little bit more controversial.”
Jennings said the two met at a theater workshop during the summer before their sophomore years at Santa Barbara High School, when the pair were both 16 years old. Because Atkinson lived on what Jennings called the “far edge” of Santa Barbara with his adopted parents, he drove the younger boy home, which allowed them to get to know each other.
Jennings’ clearest memories of Atkinson, however, are from the roughly one-month period leading up to their junior years of high school that the two spent at the Atkinson family’s fishing lodge in Crescent City.
While Jennings couldn’t remember the two ever entering Crescent City proper, he could recall moments of their daily fishing trips and nights where they would sit by the campfire and “go looking for girls.”
A missed connection
For Jennings’ senior year he moved to Marin County where he would finish high school, limiting interactions with Atkinson. Near the start of their senior years in 1951, three of Jennings’ close friends, including two mutual friends of Atkinson, died in a vehicle crash in Santa Barbara.
After coming back to town for the funeral, Jennings said he cut off his ties to Santa Barbara because he was “disturbed and distraught” by the death of his friends. That included his “connection to Santa Barbara” — Atkinson.
Jennings moved to the East Coast for work but eventually returned to California in the 1970s and moved to Sacramento in the early 2010s. Jennings’ partner, Barbara, ran into Atkinson and was given the news anchor’s business card and told to encourage Jennings to call.
Jennings waited a few years to reach out and by the time he did, the number and email no longer worked.
He and his partner continued to try to connect with Atkinson but the reconnection never happened.
“I feel badly because he was very open. He encouraged me to call. Why the hell I didn’t call, I can’t explain. I mean, I remembered Stan well and fondly,” Jennings said. “I waited too long.”
