Retired television personality Don Woods stood there smiling, relaxed before the mic.
“Back in my earlier days as a TV weatherman”, he began, “our radar technology was nothing like we enjoy today.”
Among our Thursday luncheon guest speakers over the years, we managed to garner an occasional sampling of hometown celebrities. Don fit the bill.
For decades Don had garnered an impressive viewer following, largely due to the presence of his adorable stick cartoon character – Gusty. Every evening as the cameras rolled Don would offer up the coming days’ forecasts while simultaneously sketching an action scene featuring Gusty – wind, ice storm, lightning, sunshine. Gusty’s actions reflected the nature of whatever conditions might lie ahead. We hoped too, for the benefit of our students (nearly none of whom had heard of an Oklahoma twister), that Don’s talk could include a cautionary element, given our spot in the heart of Tornado Alley.
Picking up on his radar theme, Don Woods went on,
“One morning in the dead of winter I arrived at my office to be greeted by my boss, the KTUL station manager. “’Don’”, he said, ‘we just got a call from one of our viewers. Says he has a request,” ‘Would you please have your weatherman come out to my house and shovel the six inches of ‘partly cloudy’ off my driveway!’”
For our students coming from regions of the world where snow never fell, the account required a little explaining.
Along with being a popular meteorologist, Don was a follower of Jesus. He had brought to the luncheon a collection of small, illustrated gospel booklets of his own creation. Fittingly, the illustrations featured images of his little sidekick Gusty.
©2024 Jerry Lout