C
CentralFLEagle
Guest
In this morning's Jackson Clarion-Ledger, there is a piece noting that the daughters of longtime WLBT-TV 3 weatherman Woodie Assaf are selling much of his estate so that he and his wife Ruth can continue to keep the couple together in an assisted living facility in the Mississippi capital city.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050621/FEAT05/506210346/1023
Assaf was with the NBC affiliate from it's first day on the air in 1953 until he was "retired" in 2001. He had undergone three heart surgeries in as many months two years earlier, and was still working only a limited schedule when the decision was made to replace him. The decision was highly unpopular across the Magnolia State, where he was voted by Clarion-Ledger readers as Mississippi's "TV Personality of the Millennium" in 1999.
Woody's 48 years on WLBT makes him the longest serving TV weatherman for one station in the nation. He was especially sought after as a pitchman and emcee, and also promoted shows on the side. After the devestation of 1969's Hurricane Camille, Assaf put together a telethon which was aired statewide and aired from Jackson's Mississippi Coliseum featuring many of the biggest stars in show business to raise money for the relief effort. His willingness to support such a variety of causes made him known as "Mississippi's Bob Hope".
The sale will include a piano, vintage pool table, a bedroom suite, three sets of Woodie's golf clubs, photos of various entertainers, classic recordings including 45s by Elvis and 78s by Guy Lombardo and Bing Crosby, and vintage TV/radio mics. The Assaf home will eventually be sold as well.
I remember watching Woodie doing weather while I was a kid. WLBT didn't always come in clearly (I lived near Hattiesburg, near 85 miles away), but his down home manner and the novelty of "Radar 3" (the state's first television weather radar back in the '60s) caught me. He is certainly a class act, and it's sad to read that the family is having to sell off many of their items to keep he and his beloved wife together in their latter days.
Woodie and his wife Ruby are both in their 80s, and their daughters say they are in frail health.<P ID="signature">______________
Robert Charles Pickering
Lakeland, Florida</P>
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050621/FEAT05/506210346/1023
Assaf was with the NBC affiliate from it's first day on the air in 1953 until he was "retired" in 2001. He had undergone three heart surgeries in as many months two years earlier, and was still working only a limited schedule when the decision was made to replace him. The decision was highly unpopular across the Magnolia State, where he was voted by Clarion-Ledger readers as Mississippi's "TV Personality of the Millennium" in 1999.
Woody's 48 years on WLBT makes him the longest serving TV weatherman for one station in the nation. He was especially sought after as a pitchman and emcee, and also promoted shows on the side. After the devestation of 1969's Hurricane Camille, Assaf put together a telethon which was aired statewide and aired from Jackson's Mississippi Coliseum featuring many of the biggest stars in show business to raise money for the relief effort. His willingness to support such a variety of causes made him known as "Mississippi's Bob Hope".
The sale will include a piano, vintage pool table, a bedroom suite, three sets of Woodie's golf clubs, photos of various entertainers, classic recordings including 45s by Elvis and 78s by Guy Lombardo and Bing Crosby, and vintage TV/radio mics. The Assaf home will eventually be sold as well.
I remember watching Woodie doing weather while I was a kid. WLBT didn't always come in clearly (I lived near Hattiesburg, near 85 miles away), but his down home manner and the novelty of "Radar 3" (the state's first television weather radar back in the '60s) caught me. He is certainly a class act, and it's sad to read that the family is having to sell off many of their items to keep he and his beloved wife together in their latter days.
Woodie and his wife Ruby are both in their 80s, and their daughters say they are in frail health.<P ID="signature">______________
Robert Charles Pickering
Lakeland, Florida</P>