Friday, May 21, 2004 | 4:21 a.m.
WEEKEND EDITION
May 22 - 23, 2004
For nearly 25 years Gary Waddell has been a fixture on evening news in Las Vegas.
Waddell, who turns 60 on Wednesday, has anchored the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts since joining KLAS Channel 8 in August 1980.
That is, until July, when Dave Courvoisier, replaced Waddell on the 11 p.m. newscasts. Waddell since has been moved to the noon, 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts.
Raised in Kearney, Neb., Waddell's first TV job was as a reporter for a small UHF station in Chicago in the late '60s. In January 1971 he moved to Las Vegas after accepting a job with KVBC Channel 3 as a reporter and evening weatherman.
A few years later Waddell left TV news and worked for an ad agency and then as a real estate agent before joining KLAS.
A motorcycle enthusiast, Waddell and a friend were injured in April 2003 when a driver who was found to be driving under the influence of alcohol plowed his car into them after they pulled over and stopped for another accident.
Waddell suffered three broken ribs and was badly bruised in the wreck, but continues to ride his Harley-Davidson and BMW motorcycles.
The Las Vegas Sun recently talked to Waddell.
Las Vegas Sun: How has the position of anchor evolved for you?
Gary Waddell: The basics are still there: the who, what, when, where, why and how. And good writing is good writing, whether it's from the 1960s or the 1990s or 2000s. So that kind of thing is still basic. But we've got so much more to work with now. We've got satellites and practically every news vehicle is a live vehicle now, so we can go live from almost anywhere.
When I first started here at Channel 8, going live was a major project -- and that had just happened within the last year or so before I got here, when they got their first live truck. Those are the kind of things that make it fun if you use the technology to enhance the news, and that's what we try to do here.
Sun: Do you consider being moved to other newscasts a demotion?
GW: I didn't think of it as a demotion. I still do what is the show of record, the 6 o'clock news. I also get to travel a lot more than I used to and do stories on the road a lot more than I used to, so that was a nice bonus. I've been married for 8 1/2 years and I had never been off in the evening to spend time with my wife before. I'd worked this shift for almost 23 years when I moved to days, so that was nice.
There are still things about the old shift that I liked. I got a lot more done because I had my mornings to myself and I could run errands and do things that it's harder to do, now that I come in at 10 in the morning and don't get out until basically 7 o'clock at night. But all in all, I like the hours a lot better. I get a chance to see a movie in the evening or go out for dinner and not have to run off and leave for work.
Sun: How did your motorcycle accident happen?
GW: We were coming back up the highway from Laughlin, coming up the hill on, I think it's 163, headed for the highway to turn right to go up to Searchlight and Las Vegas. There had been a fatal accident there, so we pulled over to talk with the Highway Patrol, who had the road blocked off to one lane. As we pulled over, a drunk driver apparently didn't realize we were stopping and just followed our taillights and plowed right into the back of me.
I don't know how fast he was going -- highway speeds -- he skidded a little ways, but not nearly enough to come down from 65 to 70 mph. (When I was hit) it spun my bike out from underneath me and into my friend's bike and totaled his bike, and then spun his bike into the Highway Patrol bike and chased the two highway patrol officers into the ditch and injured both of them.
I spent three days in the hospital with broken ribs and was kind of black and blue from head to toe and my friend was all beat up, although he didn't break any bones. And the highway patrol guys were off work for a couple of weeks recovering from their injuries.
Sun: Did the accident convince you to give up motorcycles?
GW: A lot of people said, "Oh, you won't ride again." But I never once questioned it. My friends and I try to take a weeklong summer trip every year and we had one planned for the third week in June. This happened the end of April last year, and we went. We did about 3,000 miles or so up through Utah, Colorado, Wyoming. We had a really nice trip. And I never for one moment doubted I was going to take that trip.
Sun: While your hair has never been long, the previous meticulously styled cut was shaggy compared to your new spikey 'do. How did this come about?
GW: I was going to Hawaii and knew I was going to do a bunch of scuba dives, so I cut my hair off before I went and this is sort of how it grew back. And I thought, "Well, this is a lot less work, so I'll just keep it that way." Practically everybody I run into says they like it, including my bosses, and everybody in the newsroom kinda liked it, so I thought, "What the heck? I'll just keep it this way." Overall reaction has been good. I have one guy who keeps calling me and giving me a hard time about it, but by and large everyone likes it.
archive
