After five decades in broadcasting, WCCO's Al Schoch is retiring this week

A native of Stroudsburg, in Pennsylvania's Poconos Mountains. Schoch's career took him to numerous spots around the U.S. before a 30-year run in the Twins Cities.

"When you have a career this long, you think about the top moment," Schoch reflected, speaking to the WCCO Morning News with Vineeta Sawkar this week. "This is it right here because I survived all these years. And I'm retiring on my own terms. That's very rare for a lot of businesses and so I just think it's, looking back, an extreme accomplishment what I've put together over these years."

After graduating from Bloomsburg University, his career began in his home state of Pennsylvania, then to the southeastern U.S. for ten years with stints in Augusta, Georgia where he spent several years covering The Masters. That was followed by stops in Charleston, South Carolina, and Tallahassee, Florida.

Schoch has won more than 30 broadcast awards both nationally and locally in five different states, including numerous awards for his work on WCCO Radio.

Schoch became an early morning voice on WCCO Radio, including those early alarms on Saturday and Sunday. Schoch says he enjoyed those hours because it gave you autonomy.

"Just about every place I've worked was early mornings and weekends, and a lot of folks wouldn't take those hours," he said. "But I looked at it as an opportunity and I accepted it, grabbed the opportunity, and here I am 40 years later saying I'm glad I did it."

In addition to working with the WCCO Radio news team, Schoch is a public address announcer for Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul and Augsburg University in Minneapolis. He also spent numerous years as the PA voice for St. Thomas. He is also known to fill in for various teams, including the Minnesota Wild (press box PA) and Hamline Pipers.

"Public address announcing is the first thing I ever did," Schoch recalls. "That's how I got my start in 1971. I wanted to do public address announcing. I heard someone do it at Madison Square Garden, John Condon his name was. And I said, man, that sounds great. A couple of years later, through connections, my mom worked at the school, I was able to announce junior varsity basketball games."

Among Al’s favorite aspects of being Minnesotan are the State Fair, which is an understatement. Rarely a day goes by where you don't see Al and his wife at the Great Minnesota Get-Together. He is also frequently spotted at the boy’s high school hockey state tournament, and he enjoys playing softball in a senior league in Roseville.

Al lives in the Como Park neighborhood of St. Paul, jokingly referred to in the WCCO Newsroom as "The Como Park Bureau", along with his wife Amy, a White Bear Lake native and graduate of Hill-Murray and the U of M, and their cat, Clover.

And if you're unfamiliar with that Al Schoch humor, how he describes his love of PA work explains it all.

"Whenever I talk about how I started, I said public address announcing is my first love," Schoch adds. "And Amy would say, 'I thought I was your first love?' And I'd say, honey, you aren't even the first Mrs. Schoch."

As for retirement, besides PA duties and those senior league softball games, is anything else on tap?

"I have duties as assigned," Schoch says about his wife having him home every day. "And the first thing, the number one thing is secure the perimeter because sometimes leave the doors unlocked around the house. So that's my first job every day is to make it to secure the perimeter."

This is the second big retirement in the WCCO Radio Newsroom this summer. Former Morning News Editor Steve Simpson retired in early July.

There's no question, we are going to miss our friend, our colleague, his sense of humor, and his genuine love of broadcasting and journalism here at WCCO Radio. Nothing but the best to you in your retirement Al Schoch!