Knowles Robertson’s 35-year Bay Area radio career included 20 years as News and Public Affairs Director at country music station KNEW and later its sister station KSAN. Robertson had been heard as a program host on KLX, KCBS and KFRC before focusing on news.
Knowles was born in Colorado, though he grew up in Oakland. Family members say he “adjusted” his age on a form so he could join the Merchant Marines at age 14, serving aboard ships in the South Pacific during World War 2. He would serve in the Air Force during the Korean War.
He was known for his love of California history and for many years in the 1970s, his short pieces on the history of California place names would appear in a newsletter sent out with Pacific Gas and Electric Company utility bills.
He was active in the Radio-Television News Directors Association and was one of the founding members of the social group Broadcast Legends, now a program of the California Historical Radio Society. Robertson died in 2016 at age 77.