Expect a side or two of “Hey, Doug!” and a longer mealtime if you're out to eat with Doug Weathers because people like to say hello to the former anchorman.

“Some of them sit down and we have a chat,” says Weathers, 90. (He turns 91 on Sept 22)

“It would take forever,” recalls WTOC’s former general manager Bill Cathcart. “He was just universally loved.” Weathers retired in 2001, but his acclaim continues.

Last week, Rep. Carl Gilliard officially dedicated the interchange at I-516 and Highway 17 as the Doug Weathers Interchange. The Georgia Senate passed the resolution this year to name the interchange after Weathers with bipartisan support.

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Also, consider WTOC’s “Doug Weathers Newsroom,” and as of January, Weathers’ induction into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Weathers consecutively dominated Savannah ratings with “70-plus” percent of the local viewer audience before the internet took off, according to Cathcart.

“All ages, all races, all religions,” Cathcart says. "He crossed all of the lines and welcomed them all into his newscast.”

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Why is he so popular? Cathcart mentions Weathers as a never-met-a-stranger type who can relate to people on and off the air.

“I learned a long time ago that you learn a great deal from listening, and you should never look down on anyone,” Weathers says.

He doesn’t correct people who wrongly recall their time together with him in high school in Savannah. (Weathers didn’t attend high school in Savannah.) Nor does he think it’s helpful to say that he does not, in fact, remember someone from a particular story. He respected the stories he shared, honored that people called on him.

“You’ve got to remember, those stories are very important to those people,” he says.

He grew up near the Alabama line in Tallapoosa, Ga., before television was popular.

“I probably wanted to be a cowboy or something,” says Weathers, laughing.

He swept a Tallapoosa theater early mornings after shows in exchange for free movie admission while in high school. Eventually he spliced film there, joining pictures to cut “dead air.”

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Later, while stationed in Savannah with the U.S. Air Force, he also worked at a gas station on 52nd and Montgomery streets where he had a fateful conversation under a raised car.

One customer, a WTOC worker, asked what Weathers thought of the station. Weathers, grease gun in hand, said WTOC was off air too long — and he could fix the problem.

Weathers began splicing WTOC film in 1954. Since his work took just 2 hours, he also swept, helping the janitor. “I don’t care what job they gave me, I did the best I possibly could. I didn’t slack off,” Weathers says.

He only filled in as anchorman about 15 years later when a coworker missed work. The rest is history. People he met around town would later call him with a story idea; Weathers honored their trust.

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People had every reason to believe whatever Weathers said, Cathcart says. “When he said something, as the old saying goes, you could take it to the bank,” he says.

For Weathers, standout stories include the crash of a Boeing KC-95 Stratotanker on Isle of Hope in 1958 where 11 people died, and interviewing former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Weathers also interviewed Georgia governors Zell Miller and Lester Maddox.

“Listen, I’ll tell you a little story about that,” Weathers says of the controversial Maddox.

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Maddox had to appoint a judge in Savannah and called Weathers’ home phone, asking which judge he thought would do the best job.

“I told him George Oliver. He appointed him judge,” Weathers says of the judge who would later preside over the famed Jim Williams trial featured in the “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” book and movie.

Weathers says hard work and perseverance were keys to his success and that he’s very fortunate and blessed. And he’s still helping around the Savannah community he says has been so good to him and his family.

He volunteers with organizations like the philanthropic 200 Club, the Band of Brothers ministry and Calvary Baptist Temple where he attends church. He also gives speeches, like he did recently at a Methodist men’s group in Springfield where he recalled his progress.

“I started on the bottom as a film editor and janitor — or assistant to the janitor, I beg your pardon — and when I retired I was vice president of news,” Weathers says.

He never dreamed of such acclaim.

“I was a little black-headed country boy trying my best to make it,” he says.