As he’s stepping away from his media presence in the Granite State, Fritz Wetherbee was asked how his stories will continue to be told.

“Over 24 years, I told 5,000 stories – they can be accessed anytime online,” he said. 

After a quarter-century on “New Hampshire Chronicle” at WMUR and an equivalent amount of time divided between two radio stations in Peterborough, reporting for the Monadnock Ledger and at New Hampshire Public Television, Wetherbee is retiring from his on-camera storytelling. His professional laurels include New Hampshire Governor’s Arts Award, Lifetime Achievement Award, Doctor of Humane Letters “honoris causa” from New England College and Broadcaster of the Year from New Hampshire Association of Broadcasters. A shelf in his Acworth home is given over in part to volumes of town histories from across the state, five New England Emmys and some Golden Mike awards.

“People are very nice. I’m appreciative,” he said about the outpouring of sentiment he has experienced since announcing his retirement, which will take place in May. Going from being beamed into homes from New Hampshire’s biggest city to a hamlet that flirts with the Vermont border might seem an unusual change, but Wetherbee explained his desire for the quiet in Acworth that he shares with his wife, Laura, and an enthusiastically affectionate mix of a hound named Maddie. 

“I’ve been on book tours (for eight books) but I’m honestly a bit of a hermit. I don’t even watch myself (on TV),” he said. “And I’ll be 89 in July.”

Having observed and educated people about New Hampshire for a half-century, it seemed worth asking Wetherbee how the state has changed over that span, and why. Without missing a beat, he offered a lament.

“We had a very unique feature here – and it’s gone,” he said, proceeding to expound upon the Old Man of the Mountain, the rock formation in Franconia that collapsed in 2003 but still adorns state license plates. He added that the New Hampshire speaking accent, which he demonstrated with a few “a-yuhs,” has faded, replaced by a homogeneity of speech.

“TV has done it,” he said.

Wetherbee still, however, has a surefire way to tell genuine Yankees from recent transplants from out of state. 

“A real Yankee, come winter, will get good snow tires on a car. A new Yankee won’t, but instead will call those doing the snow plowing to ask them make another pass over a driveway or road,” he explained. 

Wetherbee’s tenure in journalism stretches from carrying a reporter’s notebook and camera in Jaffrey and Peterborough to taping stories with a teleprompter in his home, but according to him, he’s not good at adapting to new technology.

“I’ve learned the tech, but I’m terrible at it. I can fix things though,” he said, explaining how when the Associated Press wire machine broke at radio station WSLE in Peterborough decades ago, he, rather than the repairman sent for the task, got it running again. 

Before he was a journalist, Wetherbee could have been called an entertainer. While in the military in the late 1950s,  he placed third of 44,000 acts in the All-Army Entertainment Contest 1959-1960, and was on “The Ed Sullivan Show” twice. Reporting presented a challenge for him.

“I couldn’t spell well, but I’m good at crossword puzzles,” he said, and he still recalls the lessons of Keene State College instructor Cornelius “Bud” Lyle about journalism.

“On what authority is a statement made?” was one such lesson. “If kids say someone is a lousy teacher, that’s not a news story. If the school superintendent says someone’s a lousy teacher, that’s from an authority; that’s a story.”

Wetherbee sees the proliferation of media sources today as a double-edged sword.

“Take podcasts: there are a lot of good ones, and a lot that aren’t good,” he said.

He laments the growth of outlets that simply repeat opinions that people already hold in an effort to affirm them.

“Our echo chamber of media is not good for democracy,” he said.

Within New Hampshire, however, he has learned and shared no shortage of tales and anecdotes that have no political stripes, such as on town names. 

“Lempster in Sullivan County got its name from Leominster, Mass., but Lempster was how they pronounced it here, so it stuck. Mont Vernon was intended to be Mount Vernon, but there was a spelling error made originally; when someone pointed it out years later, they just kept it that way,” he said. 

Who will pick up the mantle to engage others in New Hampshire’s heritage after May? 

“Fourth-grade teachers,” said Wetherbee, referring to the year in school in which New Hampshire history is covered. “Alberta Hager, she was my fourth grade teacher. Anybody who had her got a feel for history.”

He wrote a sitcom screenplay once about a Select Board in a small town – where the police officer is only present on the scanner – and will be working on his memoirs with the freed-up time. In spite of having plumbed the state’s history and culture and shared it through a variety of media, Wetherbee said, “The longer I live, the less I know.”