Scott Richards, a longtime former anchor at WBRC in Birmingham, died Wednesday following a “sudden medical emergency,” the station reported Thursday, citing Richards’ family.

A native of Pennsylvania, Richards anchored newscasts at WBRC from 1981 to 2013. He anchored more than 20,000 evening newscasts at the station, according to Newsblues.com — all of them at Birmingham’s current Fox and former ABC affiliate.

Richards was named best news anchor in Alabama nine times by the Associated Press.

In the summer of 2020, he returned to broadcasting as a contributor for CBS 42 in Birmingham, where he wrote and researched for the segment “Inside This Week,” according to his bio on the station’s website.