McGarry is retiring as the host of TV’s longest-running quiz show, “It’s Academic.” For the past 50 years, teams of high school students in the Washington area have competed against each other on the Saturday morning show. McGarry has also been an announcer for the NBC news affiliate in Washington, WRC. How has local news changed since you started on WRC 50 years ago?

Well there’s a lot more of it, that’s the key thing. It used to be that news was just on several times a day. The main news was at 11 a.m. and at first it was 5 minutes, then 15 minutes and now finally up to a half hour. It’s increased a hundred times since I started in 1950.