Bob Edwards, Creator and Host of NPR's “Morning Edition”, Dies at 76: ‘The Voice We Woke Up To'

The award-winning broadcaster was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2004, the same year he made his final appearance on the popular NPR show he created

• Former Morning Edition host Bob Edwards has died at age 76, according to National Public Radio

• The award-winning broadcaster helped create the show in 1979, five years after joining the station during President Richard Nixon’s impeachment and Watergate hearings

• In his last appearance on Morning Edition in 2004, Edwards interviewed Charles Osgood, who died last month

Bob Edwards, longtime host of Morning Edition on National Public Radio, has died at the age of 76, NPR announced Monday.

Edwards is known for creating the popular morning radio newsmagazine, which he hosted for nearly two-and-a-half decades, in 1979.

A cause of death has not been released.

"He was Bob Edwards of Morning Edition for 24 1/2 years, and his was the voice we woke up to," said Susan Stamberg, who co-hosted All Things Considered alongside Edwards for five years, per NPR.

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Born in Kentucky on May 15, 1947, Edwards spent the early part of his career working for Indiana station WHEL/New Albany, “followed by a stint in Korea with Armed Forces Radio and Television,” according to the Radio Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into in 2004.

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The famed broadcaster joined NPR in 1974 amid President Richard Nixon’s impeachment and Watergate hearings, NPR CEO John Lansing said in a statement on Monday. He began co-hosting All Things Considered alongside Stamberg that same year.

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Stamberg has fond memories of Edwards’ sense of humor, as well as the relationship she had with her co-host on the air.

"We had five good — if rocky — years together, until we sort of got one another's rhythm, because he was Mr. Cool, he was Mr. Authoritative and straight ahead,” she said, according to NPR.

Five years later, Edwards helped launch Morning Edition in 1979, according to NPR. He earned multiple awards for his work on the show, including two Gabriel Awards from the National Catholic Association of Broadcasters, the Alfred I. du Pont-Columbia University Award in 1995, and a Peabody Award in 1999, according to the Radio Hall of Fame.

Edwards’ last appearance on Morning Edition on April 30, 2004 featured an interview with Charles Osgood, someone whom Edwards admired as a broadcaster. Osgood, a veteran CBS Sunday Morning host who died in January, was both his first and last interview on the show.

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The award-winning broadcaster was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame that same year.

“Bob Edwards understood the intimate and distinctly personal connection with audiences that distinguishes audio journalism from other mediums, and for decades he was a trusted voice in the lives of millions of public radio listeners,” Lansing said in his statement on Monday.

“Staff at NPR and all across the Network, along with those millions of listeners, will remember Bob Edwards with gratitude,” the NPR CEO continued.

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