Charles Kuralt

Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American television, newspaper and radio journalist and author. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, and later as the first anchor of CBS News Sunday Morning, a position he held for fifteen years.

Kuralt's On the Road segments were recognized twice with personal Peabody Awards. The first, awarded in 1968, cited those segments as heartwarming and "nostalgic vignettes."

Early life Kuralt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. Their house off Sharon Road, then 10 miles south of the city, was the only structure in the area.

As a boy, he won a children's sports writing contest for a local newspaper by writing about a dog that got loose on the field during a baseball game. When he was 14 years old, Kuralt became one of the youngest radio announcers in the country, covering minor-league baseball games and hosting a music show. Kuralt said, ""Every time I got sent to Vietnam I seemed to get into some terrible situation without really trying too hard. In 1961, we got the first combat footage of that stage of the war. It was before the U.S. was involved with troops in the field, but we went out with the Vietnamese Rangers and got ambushed. Half the company we were with got killed. We were lucky as hell not to get killed."

"On the Road" Tired of covering war stories, Kuralt proposed to his bosses a new project: "How about no assignments at all? How about three months of rolling down the Great American Highway, just to see what he could see?"

According to Thomas Steinbeck, the older son of John Steinbeck, the inspiration for "On the Road" was Steinbeck's Travels with Charley (whose title was initially considered as the name of Kuralt's feature). During his career, he won three Peabody Awards and ten Emmy Awards for journalism. He also won a George Polk Awards in 1980 for National Television Reporting.

In 2011, Kuralt's format was revived by CBS News, with Steve Hartman taking Kuralt's space. , Hartman continues to host the segment weekly on the CBS Evening News.

CBS Sunday Morning anchor and subsequent CBS roles On January 28, 1979, CBS launched CBS News Sunday Morning with Kuralt as host. On October 27, 1980, he was added as host of the weekday broadcasts of CBS' Morning show as well, joined with Diane Sawyer as weekday co-host on September 28, 1981. In early 1997, he signed on to host a syndicated, thrice-weekly, ninety-second broadcast, An American Moment, presenting what CNN called "slices of Americana". He agreed to host a CBS cable broadcast show, I Remember, designed as a weekly, hour-long review of significant news from the three previous decades. At the time, both Kuralt and Sory were seniors at UNC. They had two daughters, Susan Bowers and Lisa Bowers White. The marriage ended in divorce in 1960. He married Suzanne Baird in 1962. Kuralt is buried on the UNC grounds in Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. His wife Suzanne died in 1999 and is buried next to him.

After Kuralt's death, questions about his estate led to the public disclosure of his three-decade companionship with a Montana woman named Patricia Shannon (formerly Patricia Shannon Baker). Kuralt met Shannon while doing a story on Pat Baker Park in Reno, Nevada, which Shannon had promoted and volunteered to build in 1968. The park was in a low-income area of Reno that had no parks until Shannon promoted her plan. Kuralt mentioned Shannon and the building of the park — but not the nature of their relationship — in a book he published in 1990 chronicling his early life and journalistic career. With Shannon, Kuralt had a second, "shadow" family; he paid for Shannon to attend the Inchbald School of Design, and helped to raise and financially support her three children. Kuralt's wife was apparently unaware of this. After Kuralt's death, Shannon asserted that he had willed her a property in Twin Bridges, Montana; though it was contested by Kuralt's family, her claim was upheld by the Montana Supreme Court.

Publications

Audiobooks More Charles Kuralt's American Moments (1999) Charles Kuralt's Autumn. (1997) Charles Kuralt's Summer (1997) Charles Kuralt's Spring (1997) Charles Kuralt's Christmas (1996) Charles Kuralt's America (1995)

Books Charles Kuralt's People (2002) Charles Kuralt's America (1995) A Life on the Road (1990) 1997: Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Charles Kuralt's Spring 1996: Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism 1996: Television Hall of Fame, Academy of Television Arts & Sciences 1993: Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement 1985: Broadcaster of the Year, International Radio & Television Society The Charles Kuralt Trail along the Roanoke–Tar–Neuse–Cape Fear Ecosystem in Virginia and North Carolina honors his many On the Road and Sunday Morning stories about nature and wildlife. The University of North Carolina's Journalism School displays many of Kuralt's awards and a re-creation of his New York City office Kuralt's papers are archived at Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.