OBITUARIES / PASSINGS / Dan Miller

Dan Miller, 67, a longtime Nashville TV news anchor who was briefly Pat Sajak’s sidekick on a late-night talk show, died of a heart attack Wednesday night in Augusta, Ga.

Nashville station WSMV-TV reported that Miller had gone to his hometown of Augusta with two co-workers to watch practice rounds of the Masters golf tournament.

Miller had anchored evening newscasts for the station since the 1970s. He also worked as an evening news anchor at KCBS-TV (Channel 2) in Los Angeles in the ‘80s and in 1989-1990 was Sajak’s sidekick for a short-lived show Sajak did on CBS-TV.

In a statement Thursday, the longtime host of the syndicated television game show “Wheel of Fortune” said, “Dan was an extraordinarily caring and talented man. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life.”

Miller and Sajak had met at WSMV in the 1970s when Miller was an anchorman and Sajak a weatherman, leading to their friendship and Miller’s spot on “The Pat Sajak Show.”

After Sajak’s show ended, Miller worked as a substitute host for Tom Snyder’s ABC radio show. He returned to Nashville and had a talk show on TNN before resuming his anchor duties at WSMV in 1995.

Born in 1941, Miller began working at TV stations in Augusta and Columbia, S.C.