KXLY Newsman killed in accident

The Spokesman-Review

1977 KXLY-TV billboard, not long after the station’s affiliation switch from CBS to ABC. From left: Mike Tipton, Larry Hunter, Cole Bunzel and Richard Montague.

KXLY-TV newsman Cole Bunzel’s auto “apparently skidded on slush” when it collided with a semi trailer truck south of Spokane Thursday morning, killing Bunzel, Washington State Patrol troopers said.

Troopers said Bunzel was southbound on U.S. Highway 195 one half-mile south of Spangle, Wash., about 9 a.m. Thursday when his small foreign station wagon crossed the road’s center line and collided with the northbound truck.

Bunzel, 25, was dead at the accident scene, troopers said. They said his vehicle was crushed by the impact.

The truck driver, Gerald Farnsworth, 34, Bonnots Mill, Mo., was reported in fair condition at Deaconess Hospital Thursday night with upper body injuries.

The rig jackknifed and skidded into a field off the west side of the roadway, troopers said. They said there were no passengers in the two vehicles.

A KXLY spokesman said Bunzel, who produced and anchored the station’s 11 p.m. news broadcast, was on his way to Pullman, Wash., to cover Vice President Walter Mondale’s speech at Washington State University.

Bunzel, who lived in an apartment at W2211 Riverside, received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1975 and a master’s degree from Columbia University School of Journalism in 1976, the spokesman said.

He had worked as an intern at Time Magazine before joining the KXLY staff in 1976, the spokesman said.

Friday, January 13, 1978