ORLANDO, Fla. – Weather anchor Danny Treanor has been a staple in Central Florida for decades.
He first started bringing the weather to people in the greater Orlando area in 1978. Forty years later he wrapped up his career at News 6 in 2019.
On an episode of Talk to Tom, Treanor took us back down memory lane and caught us up on how retirement is going.
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He said he started his career in radio. But after moving to complete his education in 1963, he couldn’t find another radio gig. So, he auditioned at a TV station. After two auditions he said he got the job. Then, in 1968 Treanor said the weatherman quit and he wanted to fill his shoes.
“I went to the front office, I said, ‘Can I do that?‘ And they went, ‘Can you? Try,’” Treanor said.
At that time Treanor said, “Television was in its infancy”.
He said he would get his weather information from a teletype machine, but quickly made friends with people at the National Weather Service. He said he would lean on the information from experts at the NWS and present that information to the community in a relatable way.
Treanor brought that relatability to the sunshine state in the late 1970′s.
He said soon after getting here Hurricane David hit and his coverage of the storm helped him to gain the community’s trust.
Sorrells also became part of that community after joining News 6 in 2000.
Sorrells said he knew he loved Treanor the first time he met him. Shortly after moving to Central Florida, Sorells said people always asked him if he knew Treanor, but he didn’t because he was working at a competing station.
So, after seeing a story about him in the newspaper he got his phone number through mutual acquaintances.
“I called you and left you a message, you called me back, we met for barbecue and we talked for six hours, maybe three,” Sorrells said.
The two remained friends. After Treanor stopped working at another news station in Orlando he asked Sorrells if he could get him a job at News 6. He did. Treanor worked at News 6 until he retired for the last time in 2019.
Treanor said retirement was a big transition.
“I didn’t know how to retire. That was the biggest problem. I’ve talked to some people about this before,” he said. “If you ask a lady to tell you about herself, quite often she’ll tell you about her children. If you ask a man about himself, he’ll start talking about his job. So, I was that kind of person. I defined myself by my job. I thought, ‘As long as I’m working, I’m important or I am somebody, I have an identity.’ And I didn’t know how not to work. And I was afraid not to work. Because I was afraid, I’d be forgotten, or I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. And what happened was I went on a trip with our church group to Israel and discovered I like traveling.”
Hear more about Treanor’s travels, his battle and victory over alcohol abuse, and more on Talk to Tom. You can watch Talk to Tom anytime on News 6+.
You can listen to every episode of Florida’s Fourth Estate in the media player below: