Mr. Brooks, 76, was with his wife, Muffy, on a cruise of the Panama Canal when he became sick. He had been suffering from cancer.

"His love for people crossed all walks of life," said Gail Coniglio, a longtime friend and president pro tem of the Palm Beach Council. "Whether it was a president of a company, a CEO, a legislative representative or the garbage man, he was kind, respectful and always considerate of who they were and how they fit into his life."

Mr. Brooks served an almost unheard of 17 years as general manager of WPTV Channel 5 after holding the station manager job for a couple years.

Television was not his first career. He had been a priest, but left the clergy when the Catholic Church would not denounce the Vietnam War, said Bernadette O'Grady, program director at WPTV and a longtime friend.

Mr. Brooks' faith remained with him and shaped the way he saw broadcasting.

Mr. Brook's focus on local programming earned him a national reputation as a trailblazer, General Manager Steve Wasserman said

"He didn't view the television station as a profit center, which it certainly was," Wasserman said. "He believed the community came first. He believed that local news came first."

The station would earn viewers' loyalty through good work in the community, Mr. Brooks believed, rather than flashy spots about the station being number one in ratings, O'Grady said.

Mr. Brooks founded the station's Food for Families drive 25 years ago. The station is now renaming the drive for him.

Though he had shed the cloth, Brooks continued to emit the aura of a spiritual advisor. People came to him with their problems. And he took a personal interest in their lives, learning the names of their spouse, children, pets.

"If you told Bill Brooks a secret, you may as well have said it in confessional," Coniglio said. "It never went any farther."

Mr. Brooks loved a party. Before he retired in 1998, he passed out green carnations for St. Patrick's Day and red ones on Valentine's Day to every woman on the staff.

Mr. Brooks lived on Palm Beach for nearly four decades.

He served on the town council for eight years. In 2008, in the most expensive council election ever, the four-term councilman lost in a surprising upset to David Rosco.

Mr. Brooks was out of the country when his beloved Red Sox won the world championship in 2004. When the team won again in 2007, this time with Mr. Brooks watching, friends joked that the team took a second title just so he could witness it.

Now, Coniglio said, Mr. Brooks will be behind home plate at every game.

Funeral arrangements will not be set until Mr. Brook's wife returns to the country, O'Grady said.