I wanted to share this with all of you out there. A long read. I have to share this from my heart and I hope you leave with something positive out of this. I want to take a moment to thank someone. This person is not on Facebook, but this person has been a significant mentor to me in my life and my career from the time I was just a young kid. Some of you may remember him. If you grew up in San Antonio or the Hill Country or anywhere within the San Antonio viewing area in the 80s and 90s, you may remember this weatherman. This is why I became a weatherman and its also why I promised to never forget those who paved the way for my career when nobody else gave me the time of day. This man deserves recognition. I knew I wanted to be a weatherman from the time I was in 4th grade living in Harlingen, Texas and having Larry James as a neighbor. Larry worked for KGBT-TV for a long time. I was a weather enthusiast before that, but it was no coincidence that I had a weatherman for a backyard neighbor in elementary school I suppose. Weather always surrounded me. We moved to Kerrville after I completed 6th grade. An anchorwoman by the name of Gloria Campos bought our house in Harlingen. You may know her name too. She went on to become the main news anchor at WFAA-TV in Dallas. I was always surrounded by TV folks it seemed. I was in a JCPenney commercial in the Rio Grande Valley when I was in 4th grade. I met Albert Flores at KRGV-TV where we filmed that commercial in 1978. He went on to have a career at KENS-TV and now WOAI in San Antonio. When I firmly decided that I wanted to study weather, I was in 7th grade. At that time, I wrote every single weatherman in San Antonio. I wrote each letter by hand and addressed it to each weatherman at each affiliate. I never heard back from two of them. After two weeks or so, I received a handwritten letter in return. It was from KMOL NewsCenter 4 (Now WOAI-TV) and it was a letter from Meteorologist John Willing. Some of you may remember him well. If you do remember him, you will also remember how excited he would get when there were storms or the possibility of ice in the winter months and many may remember his coverage of the 1985 snowstorm that brought 13 inches of snow to Kerrville and paralyzed San Antonio that January. He would later tell everyone that the 1985 snowstorm was one of the most memorable weather events in his TV career. Anyway, I had asked each weathercaster for tips on what I could do to become a weatherman and asked for tips on where I could get all kinds of weather data. Internet was not around back then. You had to rely on snail mail. John wrote a kind letter and answered every one of my questions and then directed me to the National Weather Service office in San Antonio for additional information. His reply meant the world to me, but it was his final statement that stuck with me and I cherish it to this day. John closed his letter by saying, May God Bless You in the pursuit of your endeavors. Maybe we will see you on the tube someday! I never heard from any of the other TV weathercasters and I began watching his weather reports nightly after that. I wrote this letter in the early 1980s. I also kept his letter through the years that followed. I still have it and it is tucked away in my bible where I can constantly remind myself that God placed someone in my life who was a true mentor and a true role model. It is how God reminds me that I should never forget those who have inspired me along the way. There are many other people I could write about too, but this note is for John Willing. My first mentor. I went on to graduate high school. I went to Angelo State one year and then Texas Tech after that. My radio career started at Tech in 1987 and my TV career would follow 8 years later at KCBD. Fast forward to 1995. That February, I lost my grandfather. He was also a role model to me. I was just beginning to intern at KCBD. I was not on the air yet. Many told me that I wasnt TV material. I was not having a great year to that point. The weekend meteorologist at KCBD was Chuck DeBroder who is now a meteorologist in El Paso. He left in May 1995. John Robison (whom I consider as another very important mentor) brought me in as an intern that winter. He had an unexpected medical issue and with only one weathercaster at the station, I was introduced to the TV airwaves at KCBD in June 1995. It was a terrible introduction with severe weather all over the place and a tornado outbreak near Dimmitt which was in our viewing area at the time. It was an F3 tornado too. I didnt have time to be nervous, there was severe weather all over the place on my first day with Dave Walker running camera for me. Dave was News Director and he had hired me at the time. Its important that I share all of this because when I came home that night, I found my letter from John Willing written about 15 years earlier. I saw that closing remark again. God Bless You in the pursuit of your endeavors. Maybe we will see you on the tube someday! I was quite emotional when I read it again after so many years. That night, I took a blank piece of paper. I wrote John Willing a handwritten letter. I sent a copy of my first broadcast on air. I told him how much I appreciated his response years ago. I told him that he had inspired me to accomplish my dreams years ago. I told him, I made it!!! and I took out his original letter that he wrote to me and photocopied it. I sent him the letter he wrote to me when I was just a kid. I told him that I had saved his letter all of these years and I wanted him to know that his reply inspired me to become a weatherman and that he was the only one who cared enough to respond to me. Three days later, I received a phone call. It was John Willing. We had never spoken before and had only written each other when I was a young school kid in Kerrville. He told me that my letter had inspired him. He was considering early retirement. He was ready to give up with management changes and such. He went on to explain that my letter had inspired him to continue on for a few more years and that nobody had ever written a letter like that to him. He told me that he needed to hear something encouraging and my letter had done that for him!! He finally retired a few years later in 1998. He spent one year at KTVT in Dallas as the chief meteorologist and then retired from TV by his own choice after a little more than a year there. He is no longer in broadcasting. I have now met him several times over the years and we have become friends. I had lost touch with him the past few years, but he found me on LinkedIn just this past month. He wrote me a nice letter and wanted to see how I was doing. He once again inspired me by telling me that I was meant to be in this profession and that he prayed that God would continue blessing my life as the days go by. Everything comes full circle for I had my own challenges as to whether I wanted to stay in this business or not this year. Without telling him anything at all, he told me I was definitely meant for the job. I needed to hear that. Many young broadcasters come and go. Many may not recall the first moment they wanted to be in this profession. Some may not care much about the advice given to them from those who paved the way before them. Thats OK. Im not one of those. When I was a kid, I made a promise that if I ever made it on TV, I would never forget the individuals who mentored me and paved the way for me at such a young age in my life. I told myself that I would mentor those who come after me just like John Willing did for me. What if he had never written me at all back then?? Who knows. My dream was to always work at WOAI in San Antonio and return home someday. I have tried over the years since the Hill Country was my home, but the big city markets like younger individuals and prefer talent agencies and such. I may never fulfill that dream full circle, but God gave me a wonderful radio family in Kerrville, Junction, Sonora and Ozona all along the I-10 corridor and He also gave me a daily weather column that I continue to write for the Kerrville Daily Times each day. That all happened before I returned to TV again in Lubbock at KCBD...where my TV career started in 1995. Almost 20 years ago. John Willing was one of a kind and still is. He is just as genuine in person as he was on the air all of those years. He was at KMOL (Now WOAI) for 18 years from 1980 to 1998. Thank you John Willing! Thank you for taking the time to inspire school kids like me. This is why I love speaking to every school that will have me. Its important to give back what was given to me and for all of the young broadcasters out there. Dont use your job for personal gain. Instead, remember what it was like to have a dream when you were a child. Remember that you have an opportunity to be a role model to someone else down the line. Remember that everything you say and everything you do comes back to you as the years go by. To quote John Willing once again. God Bless You in the pursuit of your endeavors!! For the young kids that may follow me down the line. Maybe we will see you on the tube someday!
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:42:02 +0000
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