BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- If you are lucky enough spend your entire career working in a business you enjoy in the city you love, one of the great perks is the opportunity to work alongside and learn from some fantastic role models.
And boy, has my platter been full.
My very first broadcasting job was working alongside David Brudnoy, the legendary Boston radio talk-show host who taught me the value of intelligence and the wisdom of candor. Over the past 13 years at WBZ I’ve had the chance to work with people like John Henning and Jack Williams, giants of the business who modeled proper preparation, humor, and humility.
And then there were the 14 years I spent at the old Channel 56 Ten O’Clock News enjoying the company of Jack Hynes, the longtime dean of Boston TV news who passed away yesterday at age 88.
Chatting with Jack Hynes was like a walk through Boston history.
A Dorchester boy who graduated from BC High and Notre Dame before serving in the Marine Corps, Jack was the oldest son of John B. Hynes, the Boston mayor during the 1950s who helped project the city from a legacy of corruption and economic decay toward the fantastic renaissance it has enjoyed.
His TV viewers rarely saw it, because Jack was an old-school anchorman who eschewed happy talk on the air, but he was a fantastic storyteller and knew everyone. Just about every day on the job, someone on the street would ask me to tell Jack they said hello.
And from our conversations I learned so much about what Boston and Bostonians are made of.
My sympathies go out to Jack’s family and close friends.
May his memory be a blessing. It certainly is for me.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. Listen to his previous podcasts on iHeartRadio.
Listen to Jon's commentary: