On a recent newscast for the Champaign station where he works, anchor Dave Benton shared a grim personal development.
“Doctors have told me that I may have four to six months to live,” Benton, 51, who has been stricken with brain cancer, told viewers. “Basically, my cancer is back and it’s too big for surgery and radiation.”
Benton, who grew up in Addison and graduated from Northern Illinois University, started at WCIA in 2005 and has won a number of awards over a career that included stops in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Wausau, Wis.; and Minot, N.D. Those honors include a Northwest News Broadcasters Association first-place documentary award in 2003 and the association’s Eric Sevareid Award of Merit for general reporting.
In announcing his somber prognosis Thursday while seated next to co-anchor Jennifer Roscoe, Benton said, “The goal here is to have a few more days and to make them the best that they can be in the life that I have here.” He also said he is undergoing new treatment that he described as “an antibody treatment and a chemo treatment” to slow the cancer’s growth.
“I believe that I’m in God’s hands,” said Benton, who noted that he is born-again Christian. “I’m at peace and I know that he’s going to take care of the days ahead.”
Viewers have shown fervent support for him during the illness, Benton said. He added that he wanted them to know that he thinks of those who are fighting cancer and other health issues. “They, too, deserve that support,” the news anchor said. “It’s not just really only about me.”
Station General Manager Coby Cooper said Monday that the response to Benton’s announcement has been “overwhelming, just from the outpouring of thoughts, well wishes and prayers from around the country and around the globe.”
Benton remains “dedicated to continue good work,” he said during the newscast. “I want to know that there’ll be a moment when I will stop and say, I hope I served” viewers, and that “I did things well.”
Cooper said the station is “going to support Dave in every way we can to see to it” that Benton continues to serve viewers for as long as he’d like.
Benton is married and the father of an adult son serving in the Air Force in California and daughter who is in graduate school in Chicago, Cooper said. He added that the anchor is declining to take phone calls or messages seeking further comment.
