ITHACA, NY (CortacaToday) — He’s a voice you’ve heard for years on WHCU — Peter King, a longtime space correspondent for CBS News Radio.

Becoming an on-air talent was a goal of King’s from an early age.

Peter King on election night in 1974 at IC (Provided)

“I was always interested in radio as a kid,” King recently told Cortaca Today. “It always captured my imagination. I was always fascinated by the people I heard on the radio — what did they look like, what are they like in person? Are they tall? Are they short?”

While in high school, King says a tour sealed the deal for his choice in career.

“I remember visiting TV stations and one radio station . . . and that sort of cemented [getting into radio] for me.”

Long before his voice was heard on hundreds of stations across the United States, King studied at Ithaca College starting in 1974.

“I learned a lot in the classroom, King said.” But I learned a lot more by working at WICB, the student-run radio station.”

During his years at IC, King got some practical, real-world radio experience, including two years at WTKO-AM in Ithaca. WTKO would later become Pure Oldies WNYY, part of the Cayuga Media Group.

He reflects on his time at the IC station fondly.

“We ran the place as if we were broadcasting 100,000 watts to the world. We cared about doing [radio] right, not just fooling around,” King remembered.

After graduating in 1978, King further honed his on-air skills at stations in Vermont, Syracuse, and Rochester. In 1994, he made the leap from music formats to broadcast journalism in Orlanda, Florida. He’d soon make another leap: from local to national as a full-time correspondent and anchor for CBS News Radio.

Looking back at his career covering national news, the Florida-based King points to space coverage as his specialty.

“I grew up a space geek watching the early days of the space race on TV, never imagining I would wind up reporting for space on network news.” His voice was attached to one of NASA’s greatest tragedies.

“The [Space Shuttle] Columbia disaster in 2003 — I was on the air as it broke up over Texas,” King recalled. “We stayed on that day 8 and a half hours of long-form programming.” NASA retired the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

Even though King left Ithaca decades ago, he still returns on trips back to New York.

“Ithaca is still gorges,” King joked.”[Ithaca] is still a very important place in my life.”

Peter King (right) with WHCU’s Joe Salzone (left) and Cortaca Today editor Maddie Cavataio (center) in Aug. 2024

Now in semi-retirement from CBS, King splits his time between his Florida home and in Central New York.