"You know, we have our differences, everybody does, honest, real differences, but I do believe strongly that we as neighbors are drawn together far more than we're driven apart." -- Dan Miller
Zachariah Daniel Miller III (September 30, 1941 — April 8, 2009), commonly known as Dan Miller, was an American television personality who grew up in Augusta, Georgia.
Miller was a longtime news anchorman for WSMV (formerly WSM-TV) in Nashville, Tennessee. Beginning his tenure there as a weathercaster in 1969, he moved to the news anchor desk in 1971. In 1986, Miller left Nashville to serve as principal anchor at KCBS-TV in Los Angeles, a position he held for one year. Miller then gained fame in the United States nationally as the announcer and sidekick for his friend and one-time WSM-TV colleague, Pat Sajak, during Sajak's short-lived CBS late-night talk show, The Pat Sajak Show. Upon returning to Nashville in 1992, Dan began hosting his own cable talk show, Miller & Company, on The Nashville Network. An earlier version of Miller & Company had aired on WSMV from 1980 to his departure for L.A. in 1986. Miller returned to the WSMV anchor desk in 1995 and continued his work there until his death in 2009.
Miller appeared in the CBS movie, The Dottie West Story, which featured Michele Lee as Dottie West. He appeared as a guest on Hollywood Squares in 1989. In 1999, he was granted an exclusive interview with the parents of murdered six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey, which led to many appearances on nationally-televised news programs.
Miller was also a prolific writer of essays about life on and off the television screen, at "Dan Miller's Notebook".
"In one line of his poem he said good fences make good neighbors. I'd like to think that Alaska and British Columbia working together can prove that we can be pretty darned good neighbors without fences.""It's easy to focus on the things that divide us. Sometimes too easy.""My view is that while you do occasionally have differences you ought to have a process where you can sit down and talk about things. How else do you solve problems?""The heart of our relationship, this natural environment that has blessed us really all along the west coast of North America, on both sides of the border we've realized that this incredible natural wealth comes with a price.""We share a wonderful, I think, physical or geographical heritage.""We're also fairly stubborn, I think, fairly independent. We have our share of difficulties with our federal government, although I've tried to as I am here encourage a better way of discussing those problems."
Miller died on April 8, 2009, after suffering a heart attack while walking in Augusta, Georgia, with longtime friend and WSMV sports director Rudy Kalis. He had returned to his hometown to attend The Masters golf tournament with Kalis and another friend and colleague, Terry Bulger.