Calvin Sneed's Memories

In the summer of 1972, a skinny 18-year-old kid from Kingsport, Tennessee topped the Ridge Cut on I-24 for the first time, hoping to continue a career in broadcasting that was already two years old.

What he saw was a hazy level of smog, with this huge mountain rising up out of it. The hazy city was Chattanooga, Tennessee, then one of the most polluted cities in America, the mountain was Lookout Mountain, spoken of by Doctor Martin Luther King in his "I Have A Dream" speech.

A very "different-looking" Calvin Sneed made his first appearance at NewsChannel 9 in 1972. Around the station, we often ask if he was applying for a job on The Mod Squad??

The skinny little kid was Calvin Sneed, who'd just been hired by WTVC-TV News Director Gil Norwood to fill the "utility" position of news reporter/news photographer/news producer.

In those early days, the WTVC newsroom SOUNDED like a newsroom.. The Associated Press and United Press International wire machines were typing and clanking out the day's events (mostly clanking). Reporters Roy Crowley, Gary Wordlaw, and Tom Hogue were trying to organize stories to report, then shooting the stories for each other. We didn't have dedicated news photographers like we do now.

The 6:00 news was only a half-hour right before the ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner and Howard K. Smith.

The 11:00 News came right before "The Joey Bishop Show" at 11:30.

The Channel 9 News cars were sights to behold in 1972. They were

Plymouth Furies (later Ford LTDs) with police engines and red emergency beacon lights on top.. imagine falling in behind a police car, ambulance or fire truck with all their lights going, and yours blazing right behind them, what a rush!

Back then, education wasn't the number one story on viewers' minds. They seemed more interested in general MAYHEM... wrecks, robberies, shootings, stabbings, fights, etc.

We filmed stories using Bell & Howell, Cannon and Arriflex film cameras, and since I ran the machine used to develop most of the film, to this day my hands still carry light spots from where the neutralizer used to process the film splattered on me (yes, I was supposed to use gloves).

In June of 1975 I went back to U-T Knoxville to further my education. About a month later, WTVC hired a guy out of Atlanta to be the main anchor. His name was Bob Johnson. Fast forward to 1999-Chattanooga is one of the cleanest cities in the

country, videotape replaced film, and that skinny little kid from Kingsport has become a middle-aged, slightly-balding news person who still has the same enthusiam for working in Chattanooga as 27 years ago.

Ain't life grand?