R.I.P.: 970 WFLA Tampa News Anchor John Sipos

John Sipos

Longtime WFLA 970 AM news anchor John Sipos, who spent almost his entire adult life on radio in the Tampa Bay area, has passed away.

According to the station's website, Sipos was an Army brat, born at Fort Benning, Georgia. He grew up in the Hudson Valley region of New York. He arrived in the Tampa Bay area in his 20's and began a career that would put him behind the microphone at several of Tampa Bay's major radio stations, including WFLA, WSUN-AM and WPLP, during the 1970's and 1980's.

When he found himself without a radio news job in the early 90's, Sipos began a weekly show about real estate on what was WTKN radio. That eventually morphed into a weekly public affairs program, Hour (Our) Tampa Bay, which ran on Paxson and CBS stations in the Tampa market until 2009.

Sipos returned to WFLA's newsroom a few years later, where he anchored newscasts on a weekend and part-time basis until recently. He also did a great deal of outside reporting, most recently in the aftermath of the Orlando terror attack.