Byron Garrison Crawford is a former television journalist and

newspaper columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay ...

from

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

. Crawford is best known for a continuing series of reports on

WHAS-TV WHAS-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on West Chestnut Street in Downtown Louisville, and its transmitter is located in ru ...

titled "On the Road," somewhat of a localized version of the series by the same name by

Charles Kuralt Charles Bishop Kuralt (September 10, 1934 – July 4, 1997) was an American television, newspaper and radio journalist and author. He is most widely known for his long career with CBS, first for his "On the Road" segments on '' The CBS Eveni ...

for

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. The feature was later syndicated as "Sideroads" to other television stations in Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio. Before his "On the Road" series, Crawford was a news reporter for the station. He started in radio at WAKY in Louisville as a news reporter and moved to WCKY in Cincinnati, Ohio, as a reporter. He then joined WHAS Radio and Television as a reporter when the stations were still under the same ownership as ''The Courier-Journal''. Crawford left WHAS in 1979 to become the Kentucky Columnist for ''

The Courier-Journal ''The Courier-Journal'', also known as the ''Louisville Courier Journal'' (and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''), is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Net ...

'' newspaper, where his column was of a similar vein as his television work. He wrote the column three times each week until retiring in 2008. Crawford was also the first host of the Emmy Award-winning television series '' Kentucky Life'' on

Kentucky Educational Television Kentucky Educational Television (KET) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is operated by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Kentucky state governm ...

, from the debut in September 1995 through summer 1999. He has published three books, all compilations of his columns: "Crawford's Journal" in 1986, "Kentucky Stories" in 1994 and "Kentucky Footnotes" in 2010. Today, Crawford continues his work penning the back page column, "Byron Crawford's Kentucky" for ''Kentucky Living'' magazine. In 2017, Crawford was honored as th
2017 Distinguished Rural Kentuckian
by the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives. Crawford's son, Eric, was a sports columnist for ''The Courier-Journal'' until 2012 when he left for

WDRB WDRB (channel 41) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Block Communications alongside Salem, Indiana–licensed dual CW/ MyNetworkTV affiliate WBKI (channel 58). Both ...

television.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Television personalities from Louisville, Kentucky Writers from Louisville, Kentucky American television hosts American columnists Courier Journal people Journalists from Kentucky American male journalists {{Louisville-stub