Long-time Houston TV personality Ron Stone died of cancer last week. Like many Houstonians, I spent a good deal of time soaking up memories from his fans – some famous, some not so famous. Like me, Angela Wrigglesworth was among the latter.
Her Ron Stone story was revealing, literally. The Klein ISD teacher's story goes back when she was 5-years-old and suffering from muscular dystrophy. As the MD poster child, she was only minutes from being introduced by Stone at his annual MD telethon. Then, cold feet got in the way. In a last-minute confession, the little girl told him she was embarrassed to go on because she felt her teeth were unattractive. No worry, the TV maestro reassured, whereupon he yanked out his front teeth, grinned broadly and said: “I do it all the time! You’ll be fine.” Angela Wrigglesworth appeared, as scheduled.
Doug Johnson, the tall, genial weatherman whose career spanned 40 years on Houston television reminisced about the college-boy pranks the two friends played on each other and former anchors Jan Carson and Ron Franklin also weighed in with memories. Even news people from competing Houston stations were not shy about saying that Ron Stone was their idol, too.
The stories kept coming. Every memory had one thing in common. Ron Stone was a kind man who helped others whenever, wherever he could.
Boy Scout, Good Deed
All of this made me think of the day back in December 1989, when Ron Stone did a favor for me. The magnanimity of his good deed wouldn’t compute for most people, but anyone who practices public relations for a living will understand immediately why he attained saint status with me.
This is what happened:
I was public relations director for the Boy Scouts of America, new at my job with a lot to prove – and I knew I wasn’t proving it fast enough. I was the first PR director the Sam Houston Area Council had ever hired. The fact that I was working for an iconic male organization that hired few women was also a career challenge. Every time I turned around I felt like I was faced with the old question, “What have you done for me lately?” I was thinking about quitting.
My assignment was the annual Christmas luncheon where 300 superstar volunteers came to learn the highlights of the year. I had amassed a respectable collection of homegrown video clips filmed at various Scouting events – the kind of feel-good material dedicated Scouters love. Boys honoring their mothers at an Eagle Scout ceremony; adorable day campers running relay races; Webelos listening attentively to the Mayor at a City Council meeting. None of it was strong enough to make it on its own, but edited into a collage, these random scraps of footage had all the makings of a holiday program piece de resistance.
Eager as our luncheon committee was to produce an inspiring, skillfully executed program, we knew the operative word here was skill. Several rules applied with these kind of events.
Don’t bore the volunteers. Don’t embarrass yourself. And most of all, don’t embarrass the Scout Executive (BSA talk for the boss).
Of course, I had no budget to pull this off. I knew exactly what I would do if I did have a budget. Hire a film production company and a popular TV personality, and then get him to do a basso profundo voice-over in a first-class sound studio. Voila! Mission accomplished. In the real world, a budget was too ridiculous to consider. This didn’t start with me. Anyone who has ever worked for a nonprofit organization knows the mantra – ‘Get it donated.’
Hollywood Out of Whole Cloth
The day before the event, I submitted to my committee that we might have to settle for a slide show. Suddenly, a loud voice from the back of the room blurted out: “Hey, Sharon -- why don’t you call up Ron Stone on the phone and get him to do it? You’re the PR lady, use your connections! You can pull it off, no problem!”
Fresh out of options with nothing to lose, I closed the door and placed the call. I’ll never know why the most popular broadcaster in Houston came to the phone and listened to everything I had to say without rushing me (or hanging up), because we had never met. But he did. Before you know it, Ron Stone was instructing me to bring my video collection to the station, along with a script. “I won’t know what to say, if you don’t tell me,” he pointed out politely. “If you can have your stuff here by two this afternoon, I’ll put it together and you can pick it up by nine in the morning.”
And so it was. Our program was a success. Ron Stone made Hollywood out of whole cloth, the Scout Executive smiled, the crowd cheered and the wise guy who suggested I make the phone call in the first place took way too much credit for it. But I didn’t care. I owed him one. I ended up staying with the Scouts for six years and watched my son earn Eagle. I said it then and I’ll say it now. "God bless you, Ron Stone."
