TOM ELLIS

What a great set of pipes! And he was, as the women say, “A HUNK!” In the early 1960’s he was working as a newsman at KONO Radio in San Antonio, Texas. Even while I was only a “propeller head” at Lackland Air Force Base, I was impressed with Tom’s radio talent for vocal delivery of otherwise mundane news copy. In many cases, I later found out, it was “rip ‘n read” from one of the news wire services. His vocal delivery was powerful, enthusiastic and purely professional.

When I was hired at KONO as a Disc Jockey for the 7 to midnight shift, I was suddenly working across the double pane glass from Tom. That’s when I learned that Tom was not only a good newsman, he was pleasant, friendly and funny too. With his talent, I knew he was certainty going to go far…AND FAST.

You can easily see from his rather concise promo piece excerpted below, that he moved up to the big markets and the BIG TIME!

Tom Ellis is NECN’s (New England Cable Network) weekend evening anchor. His career in television news spans more than 35 years, and he is well know throughout New England where he has served as anchor for all three of Boston’s major network affiliated stations. Ellis was a correspondent for WNBC-TV and an anchor for WABC-TV – both in New York City, and for KONO-TV in San Antonio.

Additionally, his broadcast career in radio included anchor/report duties for KVET-AM in Austin, Texas, KWED-AM in Seguin, Texas, and KONO-AM/FM in San Antonio.

He has received numerous awards for his work, including the prestigious Emmy and Peabody awards.

I’ve been e-mailing Tom at least once a year since early in 2005 and have included one of his early responses excerpted below:

March 12, 2005

George,

Thank you so much for enlightening me on what is going on in your life and mentioning all those other folks who are dearly engraved in my memories of KONO.

Stuff from those days constantly floods my brain and I think of all the fun we had then as youngsters.

How did we ever survive to be such old farts?

It makes me feel good to hear that one of my buddies is making the most out of life. Ain’t it been fun?

I’ve missed San Antonio more than ever this year. Right now I know that my favorite old town is in party mode through April, and here I am in New England where we’ve already had over 115 inches of snow this winter—The most in recorded history. It makes me chuckle when I hear the term “global warming.”

Catch you soon.

Tomales

In 2009, Jean and I plan to visit Cape Cod and spend some quality time with Tom and Arlene. After that, we will head to San Diego to swap lies with Gary Allyn and Sophia. We also hope to work in visits with Doug China in Nashville, Mickey Mitchell in Raleigh and Ron McKay in St. Louis.

Skinny Don Green

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