Fun History…………..
Many years ago, in the late seventies and early eighties I was Director of Pubic and Community Relations for Richland-Conrich Energy, one of the largest coal companies in Eastern Kentucky and southwest Virginia. I was in my thirties and Doug Blair, the owner of the company, was like a second father to me and gave me lots of latitude to do my job for his company. We produced a magazine called the Richland Today and one of the features was a celebrity interview in every issue. How does a mountain boy get interviews with famous people!!?? Well, I had an idea and it worked! I knew one famous person, because he was my first cousin, Ned Beatty, my Dad’s Sisters son. I grew up with Ned and so calling him and asking him to let me interview him was not a problem. He had visited with our family before and I had been the still photographer on a commercial video shoot for him, so this one was easy!
So……When I called the next agent to set up an interview and they said who have you interviewed in your magazine, I said “our last interview was with academy award nominee Ned Beatty.” Which brought a response of, sure, we’ll set it up! After that it was easier and easier to get access with, hard to interview, people!
I’m a life long football fan so it was a thrill to fly to Dallas and interview Roger Staubach who turns out to be one of the nicest, most down to earth people you could ever meet. Next was one of the best interviews I was ever able to do, with Coach Paul “Bear’ Bryant in his last season as the Alabama football coach, sadly he died 3 months after this, his last season, I’m so thrilled I got to meet him!
Next up were three great country music stars, Jerry Clower, Tom T Hall and Roy Clark.
All three of these men were great interviews and a lot of fun to talk with. As the years past I had the great privilege of interviewing all these wonderful people, listed below!
I have done some crazy and wild things with a camera in my hands, but nothing better than being with my wife and three children through so many fantastic adventures! God has richly blessed me!!!
Blessings to you,
the pilgrim
This entry was posted on Monday, August 29th, 2022 at 3:16 pm
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How’s that audio autobiography coming along? I and others would certainly love to hear it.
Slowly!
Bill,
God has richly blessed those of us who have come to know you. You are an inspiration for us, and we thank God for bring you into our lives. Miss seeing and talking to you.
Brad and Toni
Miss you too my brother, and thank you for the kind words!
You looked a little like me at that age (and I remember the transition to IBM Selectrics as well!).
Is that a Sony TC-142 in one of the shots? Still have one of mine. And you and I had similar hair (though mine was a little shorter). And in 1972 I attended the Radio Television News Directors Association convention and was the only one there who brought a recorder which caught the attention of the VP for NBC Radio news and a job offer.
As for interviews, back then you could just basically ask and do it. I remember this 18-year-old radio reporter working on a Sunday in Racine, Wisconsin saw that Chief Justice Warren Burger was attending a conference at the Johnson Wax sponsored conference center in town. I didn’t know that he didn’t do interviews and he must have forgotten. (Of course at 15 I got Dr. Martin Luther King, jr., who spoke at my high school and the following year during the 1968 presidential campaign some upstart ABC correspondent named Peter Jennings came up to me and invited me to tag along. And then I strained my arm to interview this rookie Lew Alcindor who became Kareem Abdul-Jabaar!)
True that many of the “top” people were very much down to earth (seemed almost like inverse proportion). Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, for example. One “rule” I had with celebrities was not to necessarily treat them as such and I tried to avoid “stock questions” that usually produced dull answers. Sometimes they opened up more if they felt that they were not threatened.
During the 1980 presidential campaign — the last I covered — Jerry Ford made a stop in Madison, Wisconsin. Pretty much a dull stump speech a few days before the election and not usable. At the end I asked him, “Mr. President. You got a lot of good natured kidding about hitting people with golf balls and playing football without a helmet. What do you think about the tenor of campaigns today?”
He lit up and began a harangue about how it’s a disgrace and that the candidates should apologize to the American people for their behavior. We were still rolling for ABC but I remember CBS Correspondent Lem Tucker literally falling over his photographer’s light stand as they tried to turn the camera back on.
People are far less approachable today and less candid and we’re all the poorer for it. Fun while it lasted.
Oh, and as for MLK. I asked him in the wake of passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 how he thought the passage of this legislation would impact human behavior and he replied — aptly, it seems — that when legal barriers begin to fall and people begin to work and live together human barriers will also begin dissolving, etc. I remember him not just as a powerful speaker but also no notes or script.
On your list I saw B.J. Thomas. Interviewed him once in Berrien Springs, Michigan and he opened up about his faith experiences.
We’ve shared many blessed experiences!
Sorry, forgot family. When she was a kid I took my daughter to Yellowstone every Memorial Day weekend (and she was also at Grandfather Mountain the day a woman fell off a cliff). Our Yellowstone routine always included a sunrise at Oxbow Bend in the Tetons. One year I’m set up to shoot Mount Moran and the reflection and she brought a video camera. Guess who got the moose and fox in front of our rental car? Not me.
We revisited those places in 2020.
Great memories!!!!
Bill, what a wonderful story about your early life. It is reflective of your compassion and character and how you strive for perfection in all you do. I attended your class in Nashville 2016 and it was a life changing experience for me, meeting you, the great Joe McNally, Ricky Skaggs, and Jim Haverstock.
You have done some amazing things in your life and have helped so many people get better at their passion of photography. Thank you Bill.
Thank you Dave, it is wonderful people like you and the people you listed that keep me doing this into my later 70’s! It’s the people we get to know and learn to love that make all this worthwhile!
Amen!
I loved this very interesting history..I did not know you were a writer in this kind of media. Loved Ned in the movie “Shooter”! Look at that old type writer!
Shoot, I had a manual typewriter before that!!!!
OMG…I remember when we got the Selectrics in the newsroom.