The news crew at NBC Washington said goodbye to one of its best-known reporters on Thursday.
David Culver left the station after a six-year career that began with an internship, and the station sent him off with champagne and a video tribute.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better news partner or a better friend,” said Northern Virginia bureau chief Julie Carey, who praised Culver’s “impressive, thoughtful reporting.”
“There is a reason we call you The Golden Boy,” said Eun Yang, who recalled Culver’s trip to Cuba as a reporting highlight.
“Who am I gonna dress like?” cracked Adam Tuss, while he bought a pack of Klondike bars underneath a video of himself handing Culver the frozen treats on a snowy morning.
“Any aspiring reporter, they want to look to you,” said meteorologist Lauryn Ricketts.
Culver told his colleagues Thursday that he wasn’t at liberty to say what his next job would be, but he said, “Storytelling is my passion, and I will continue to do that in places much farther from here.” (It sounds big; Wendy Rieger said that in a way, she was “glad to see you go because you need this.”)
He added that he was honored to work in the news business in his native Northern Virginia, and paid tribute to his co-workers in front of and behind the cameras.
“If you love who you work with, the hard days, the down moments — they become worth it. And you leave feeling, if not happy, fulfilled.”
He added, “It’s a tough move, and I want so badly to leave my back foot in the door as I’m stepping out, but then that’s a lunge, and I hate lunges.”
See his send off:
