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I think I've mentioned this before. I've wanted to be a journalist and broadcaster ever since my best friend Monty decided to launch his cat into space after Alan Shephard's history flight in 1961. We were 6 years old. Monty was mission control and I was Walter Cronkite. Fortunately for the cat, Monty's mother scrubbed the mission before the poor guy got airborne. From that moment on my window on history was framed by Walter Cronkite. And I hope I’m not being cliché now in saying he was my most early inspiration to get into this business. Another was a man named Dave McElhatton. He was the long time news anchor for radio station KCBS in San Francisco and later the main news anchor for KPIX-TV Channel 5 in the city. As a young man driving to class every morning in the Bay Area, trying to steer though traffic half awake with a cup of coffee in my lap, I would listen to McElhatton on KCBS and think to myself, I want to be that guy some day. I was recently in Los Angeles for the Associated Press Television and Radio Association’s awards banquet where McElhatton was among the first inductees into their Hall of Fame, along with guys like John Madden and Vin Scully. Unfortunately I did not get to meet him and tell him what an inspiration he was because he has been seriously ill. There were many other twists and turns, most of it plain old dumb luck, but it was Walter Cronkite and Dave McElhatton who started me on that journey of a thousand steps that lead me here. I hope I have lived up to their standard of professionalism, integrity, and fairness.
