After a quarter of a century in public media, the deputy director and editor-in-chief of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority announced Monday he's moving on to a new career.
Since 1990, Dick Pryor has hosted OETA's Oklahoma Forum, the Oklahoma News Report, and the network's live election coverage.
In a blog post on OETA's website, Pryor reflected on his 40 years in broadcasting – including the first 15 covering college football, baseball, and the Oklahoma City 89ers minor league baseball team:
I got to share the microphone with one of my boyhood idols, Bobby Murcer. Covering two PGA golf championships and a Women’s U.S. Open has to rank up there, too. Interviewing people like Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer was heady stuff for a young reporter. And, the time I did an auto racing story with Paul Newman (yes, that Paul Newman) is definitely highlight reel stuff. As far as news, covering the Oklahoma City Bombing has to be at the top of the list. It was the kind of story that every reporter hopes to be involved in, just not in their own home town. The short- and long-term effects of that story were astounding.
The Emmy Award-winning broadcaster produced and reported the highly-rated and critically acclaimed 2007 Oklahoma World War II Stories documentary in 2007.
The Norman native earned journalism and law degrees from the University of Oklahoma, where he spent time at KGOU during its days as a student-run commercial station. As a television sports reporter, he worked for KFDX in Wichita Falls, Texas, and at KJRH in Tulsa and KOCO in Oklahoma City.
Pryor has traveled internationally to both Russia and Bangladesh as an advisor to international reporters on American journalism. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009.
He said in the OETA blog post he plans to begin a new position with Candor Public Relations:
It’s a new challenge and new opportunity to inform and shape public discussion and opinion. I look forward to learning, growing and developing new relationships. I am grateful for my broadcasting career and for the new opportunities that lie ahead. In the final scene of The West Wing, Abigail Bartlet asked her husband, President Jed Bartlet, what he was thinking about as they left Washington. Soaring high above the clouds on their plane flight home, Bartlet responded, “Tomorrow.” I can’t wait for tomorrow. But, I will always be a journalist.
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