About Inductee

For more than 30 years, Grady Reeves was perhaps the most recognizable and influential media personality in North Alabama. When he died at the age of 67 in 1991, just three months after retiring from WHNT TV, he left behind a legacy that may never be equaled in the Huntsville radio and television market. Reeves began his local broadcasting career in 1946, calling Huntsville High School football games for WFUN Radio. He later called high school sports for WBHP Radio and worked for a time as the play-by-play announcer for the University of Alabama. He went to work in Tifton, Georgia in 1958, but returned to Huntsville a few years later as an announcer at WAAY Radio. Switching to Channel 19 television in 1963, he became the first full-time sports director in the Tennessee Valley. Although he continued to work on sports assignments, Reeves found his real calling in 1966 when he became the host of Channel 19s Mornin Folks. There was nothing like it on TV in the mornings, said his son, Robert Reeves, who co-starred with his father from 1980 until 1991, and who resurrected the show three years after his fathers death. The show did so well because Dad was so well known from the radio, Robert said. Now he was on television and people put a face with the name. It was the number one show from day one until he retired. He was pulling numbers he wasnt supposed to get from shows like Today Show and Good Morning America. Grady was most proud of his work on Channel 19s annual Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon, which began in 1976 and continued for the next 17 years. Its the most important thing I ever did in my broadcasting career, he liked to say.