Orris Tabner

(News story) Orris Tabner, who was welcomed into Toledo homes twice nightly for decades over WTOL-TV, Channel 11, and delivered sports news with authoritative ease, died Tuesday in his South Toledo home. He was 83.

He'd been in declining health since breaking a hip at the end of August, his daughter, Amy, said.

Mr. Tabner was WTOL sports director when he retired Feb. 9, 1996. Not long before, he'd been interviewing the Detroit Tigers' 32-year-old general manager.

"I realized he's the same age as my son. That's when I said, 'It's time to retire,' " Mr. Tabner told The Blade in 1996.

He'd been with the station since it went on the air in 1958.

"He was everyman," said Jim Tichy, sports director from 1974-2007 at what became WNWO-TV, Channel 24.

"He was one of the guys, and when you watched him on TV, you knew he wasn't some guy standing up on a pedestal," Mr. Tichy said. "He was a guy at a bar somewhere talking sports. He was folksy and funny, and he knew the business. He knew what it took to get an audience, and he was just a great guy."

Toledo area sports fans from the late 1940s into the 1960s could find the brothers Taberner - the original spelling - all over the airwaves. He and brother Doug changed the spelling of their last name to match the way people pronounced it. Doug was sales manager and sports director at AM radio station WTOD when he found Orris a position at its FM affiliate, the first in Toledo. Doug moved to WTOL-AM, and Orris became program director and sports announcer for WTOD. He followed his brother to WTOL-AM in 1957.

When the TV station went on the air Mr. Tabner produced brother Doug's Trophy Room sports segment during the evening news. The brothers anchored sports at 11 p.m. on alternate nights for about a year before Orris took over the television sportscasting duties.

"That was his milieu," said Jeff Heitz, WTOL anchor from 1974-2001. "He was comfy. He came across as comfy. He was professional about the whole thing. You knew he was confident."

Mr. Tabner told The Blade in 2009 that viewers still stopped him to say hello and how much they missed him.

"That's very humbling," Mr. Tabner said.

His brothers Doug Tabner and Joe Taberner were partners on Ohio State University football broadcasts and joined Frank Gilhooley, later sports director of Channel 13, WTVG, in a pioneering sports talk show on WTOL-AM. Jack Taberner announced University of Toledo basketball games and was host of a bowling TV program.

Mr. Tabner over the years was play-by-play announcer for telecasts of UT football and basketball and Bowling Green State University basketball.

He was born Nov. 8, 1932, to Ethel and John Taberner. He grew up in South Toledo, went to Robinson Junior High School, and was a 1950 graduate of Libbey High School, where he played on the football team. He attended Central Michigan University for a year before enrolling at UT and playing on the football team for a time. He received a bachelor's degree from UT in 1968.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army in 1955 and was stationed at Fort Jackson, S.C. He was public information officer for the 101st Airborne Division and played football with the post team.

His favorite sport was golf, his daughter said, and he formerly belonged to Heather Downs Country Club.

He and his first wife, the former Patsy Sanzenbacher, married Sept. 5, 1953. She died Sept. 25, 1981. He and the former Andrea Murray married in February, 1991. She died June 3, 1993, of heart failure while awaiting a lung transplant.

He also was preceded in death by his siblings, Doug Tabner, Joe and Jack Taberner, and Doreen Meadows.

Surviving are his daughter, Amy Tabner; son, Scott Tabner; stepdaughter, Amy Speweik; stepson, Thomas Kempf; four grandchildren, and seven step-grandchildren.

Arrangements are pending at the Neville Funeral Home.

The family suggests tributes to the American Cancer Society.

This is a news story written by Mark Zabroney. Contact him at mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.