Don Farmer

Over the years, he interviewed presidents, despots, civil rights legends like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and all four Beatles.

take care of aging parents on Marco Island, where Farmer will be buried.

Farmer grew up in St. Louis and dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. He attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and roomed with Skip Caray, the future Braves broadcaster. After Farmer received his journalism degree, he worked briefly with NBC News but moved to ABC News in 1965 as a correspondent at age 26.

By 1970, he was the Atlanta bureau chief for ABC News. While covering civil rights unrest in Houston, where Curle was working at a local ABC station, Farmer asked her out with the following line: “Hey, Chris, what are you doing after the riot?” They married two years later. In the 1970s, he worked in London and Germany for ABC News.

Over the years, he interviewed presidents, despots, civil rights legends like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and all four Beatles. He visited more than 100 countries as a foreign correspondent.

After retirement, he wrote a fiction thriller based loosely on his time in TV news called “Deadly News.” He also wrote columns for a local Naples newspaper and hosted a radio show.

“Dad stayed curious and engaged nearly to the very end,” said his son and current WSB-TV anchor Justin Farmer, in a public social media post Wednesday. “He was born with an abundance of curiosity, integrity and wit. As he got older, he grew sentimental. He’d tear up as fast as Nathan Deal when the conversation turned to people or experiences he loved.”

He is survived by his wife, Chris Curle; his daughter, Laurie, her husband Hal Thannisch and sons Cole and Cade; his son, Justin, and wife Allison and children Sarah Kate, James and Wallace; his sister, Judy and her family.

FILE Former Channel 2 WSB-TV anchor Don Farmer, here with his wife, fellow retired broadcaster Chris Curle, wrote a thriller novel, “Deadly News,” after retirement.