Another legend of reporting and anchoring in Colorado is signing off from the local airwaves to close out 2023.

CBS Channel 4 Denver anchor Rick Sallinger is leaving the station after 30 years, citing health reasons, he announced Thursday morning.

Sallinger was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle this past summer, recognizing more than 25 years of journalism service.

In 2005, Sallinger was a member of the team that won a Peabody Award — which the media industry views as a broadcast equivalent to the Pulitzer Prize — for KCNC’s report on Army recruiting practices that advised young recruits on how to forge documents and beat drug tests.

It’s a family affair for Sallinger, whose son Marc is also a reporter and anchor at 9News, where Rick started his career in Denver.

After 9News, Sallinger left Colorado with a stint as a reporter at WMAQ in his hometown of Chicago. In 1990, he joined CNN’s London Bureau. At CNN he covered major events as a war correspondent including the invasion of Kuwait and first Iraq War as well as the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s.

He returned to Colorado as a reporter at KCNC, where he has served for the past three decades.

Other major stories Sallinger has covered, as listed in his bio, include the Columbine High School shootings, the Oklahoma City bombing trials, the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, the Kobe Bryant case, catastrophic wildfires, and the Aurora Theater massacre among others. In 2022, he interviewed would-be presidential assailant John Hinckley Jr.

In 1999, he was one of several reporters that “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski had corresponded with. Sallinger revisited the experience when Kaczynski died this past summer.

Last year, Sallinger was inducted to his alma mater, the University of Illinois, Media Hall of Fame. In a sit down with the student newspaper, he mentioned at that time that he would consider retirement when his current contract ran out in December of 2023.

“I’ve done everything that I wanted to do in this business and much more. It’s been absolutely wonderful looking back at my career. It’s given me a wife, kids and a place to settle down in Colorado,” Sallinger told the Daily Illini.