He has been an anchor and reporter for nearly 30 years and has won a number of awards for excellence in reporting, best anchor and best newscast, including three Emmys and two AP Mark Twain Awards. Somerville started his career at KFTY-TV in Santa Rosa, and then moved to KSTP-TV in Minneapolis, MN and WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island.

Over the years he's covered every kind of story, from the Loma Prieta earthquake, to interviewing inmates on death row, to the first implosion in Rhode Island history. That story turned into an all day live event that Somerville anchored from the field, because the implosion didn’t work and they had to bring in more dynamite and try again and that attempt didn’t work either (eventually they gave up and over the next few months tore the building down with a wrecking ball). He has also covered his share of breaking news, and considers that his specialty and when he is at his best.

Of all the stories he's reported on, the two that stand out the most are; flying with the Blue Angels (yes he did throw up) and being a witness to an execution at San Quentin Prison (twice). Many people have asked him why he volunteered to watch the execution. Somerville says there were three reasons, "First, the more personal experiences I can have as an anchor, the better it makes me when I am sitting on the anchor desk. I now have an intimate knowledge of an execution and that is so important because the death penalty is an issue we will be reporting on for years to come. Second, I was curious to see what an execution and the procedure leading up to it is like. Curiosity, in my opinion, is one of the qualities that define a great anchor or reporter. And, finally, I wanted to see if watching an execution would impact how I felt personally about the death penalty.”

Somerville grew up in Berkeley and has been a vegetarian for more than 40 years. "We had chickens as pets and when my mom served chicken, I thought how can I eat that if I have pet chickens out back? So, I stopped eating chicken at age 5 and by age 12 I had stopped eating all meat, fish and poultry. I don’t do it for health reasons; I do it because I don’t like killing animals. But, just for the record, I don’t think it is wrong to eat meat. In fact, both of my girls are big meat eaters.”

Somerville's wife, Donna also worked in television, as a producer on the Phil Donahue show (one of the nicest guys you will ever meet) and on the Joan Rivers Show, to name a few of her credits. He proposed to her live on the air during a Mornings On Two broadcast while she was still working in New York, and says, "Thank God she said yes, otherwise that would have been a disaster!"

Somerville spends a lot of time volunteering for various causes; one of the most important to him is adoption because his youngest daughter is adopted. "If someone were to ask me what I am most proud of in my life it is that we adopted Callie. Every day I can see the difference we made in her life, and everyday I experience the difference she's made in ours."

Somerville, his wife Donna and daughters Sydney (11) and Callie (5) live in Oakland. His hobbies include training at the Aikido Institute in Oakland where he is a 4th kyu (green belt), lifting weights, painting and playing hockey when he can.

Send e-mail to Frank.