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Watch: Channel 9 anchor Martie Salt remembers interview with Billy Graham

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — People across Central Florida are remembering famed evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, who passed away at his North Carolina home at the age of 99.

He long suffered from cancer, pneumonia and other ailments.

Channel 9 anchor Martie Salt interviewed Graham when he preached in Tampa in 1998.

Graham began his ministry in Florida as a college student in the 1930s. He studied archaeology at a the Florida Bible Institute.

Graham told Salt he prayed that God would show him what to do with his life. He said it became clear to him that he was to be a preacher of the gospel, and he never wavered.

He spoke about his very first sermon, wherein he preached to 25 people at a tiny church in Starke, Florida.

“I was very nervous, very scared. So I had these four sermons and an outline for them, and I preached all four of them in about eight or 10 minutes,” Graham said.

Graham, who was 79 years old at the time of the interview, said while he wasn't looking forward to the infirmities of aging, he was looking forward to being in heaven and hoped to hear the words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."