Robert "Bob" Lazich

1931 - 2026

Robert "Bob" Lazich
01/23/1931 - 01/05/2026
Robert "Bob" Lazich, a broadcast journalist whose calm, confident voice informed Bay Area listeners for three decades on KNBR radio, died January 5, three weeks shy of his 95th birthday. A radio professional for more than 50 years, he became one of San Francisco's most trusted news voices and a member of the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame.
Bob was born in Eveleth, Minnesota, and grew up in Butte, Montana, where his fascination with radio began as a teenager. He told the story of hitchhiking six miles to the local station in search of a job as a sports broadcaster. The station had no sports job for him, but let him work unpaid in exchange for the opportunity to practice with their equipment, launching his career. During afternoons, he became "Buffalo Bob," spinning cowboy music and western favorites for listeners across the state.
He attended the University of Montana in Missoula, earning a bachelor's degree while working his way through school on the air. He later completed a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University in New York, deepening the reporting skills that would define his long career in broadcast news.
While in college, Bob worked as an announcer on the Z Bar Network, a chain of five Montana radio stations that carried regional programming. He hosted the "XL Ranch" western music show on the five station Z Bar Network each Saturday, building the easy, conversational style that would define his later news work.
Those early years also included live Saturday night broadcasts from Missoula's Sunshine Bar, where he introduced the Snake River Outlaws, a popular 1950s cowboy band whose remastered performances still circulate as a time capsule of that era. Bob later recalled this period with affection, calling it a formative chapter in a career he "never got out of," one that ultimately spanned 52 years behind the microphone.
After Montana, Bob's career took him through several posts in the Midwest, including work as "Buffalo Bob" on a daily western show over KSJB in Jamestown, North Dakota where he met a teacher named Lois Rude, whom he married six months later. By the mid 1960s he had established himself as a versatile announcer and newsman, equally at home with music, features, and hard news.
In 1965 he moved to San Francisco to join KNBC, the NBC-owned affiliate that would shortly change its call letters to KNBR, initially as a news writer before quickly moving onto the air. That move began the long Bay Area chapter of his life, where he would become a fixture for generations of listeners. Bob spent more than thirty years at KNBR as a news anchor and reporter, covering many of the Bay Area's biggest stories with a steady, unflappable delivery. Colleagues and listeners alike knew him simply as "Laz," a reliable presence in a rapidly changing radio landscape.
He also delivered network newscasts for NBC Radio from San Francisco, voicing two nightly national broadcasts for seven years before the network centralized operations in New York. Bob retired from broadcasting around age 70, closing a career that began in Montana and culminated on one of the West Coast's most prominent radio signals. He was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in the News category in 2014.
Bob was predeceased by his wife of more than 60 years, Lois Lazich (nee Rude); his brothers Nick Lazich and George Lazich; and grandson Gregory Lazich. He is survived by his children Milan Lazich (Jill Fraser Crowley), Michael Lazich (Jennifer Tsay) and Mitzi Lazich; grandson Alexander Lazich and granddaughter Ariana Lazich; and sisters Mildred Lazich and Sophie Clement (nee Lazich).
A service is planned for January 22, 2026, at 10:30 a.m. (Pacific Time) at Sneider & Sullivan & O'Connell's Funeral Home, 977 S. El Camino Real in San Mateo, California.