Ron Stone (April 6, 1936 – May 13, 2008) was an American

news anchor A news presenter – also known as a newsreader, newscaster (short for "news broadcaster"), anchorman or anchorwoman, news anchor or simply an anchor – is a person who presents news during a news program on TV, radio or the Internet. ...

KPRC-TV KPRC-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Graham Media Group. Its studios are located on Southwest Freeway (I-69/US 59) in the Southwest Management District (formerly Greater ...

in Houston, Texas for 20 years from 1972 to 1992. He was called "the most popular and revered news anchor the city has ever known" by the ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...

''. He was president of Stonefilms, Inc., a Texas production company.

Education and early career

Stone attended college and received a B.A. from East Central State University. He had an M.L.A. degree from

Houston Baptist University Houston Christian University (HCU), formerly Houston Baptist University, is a private Baptist university in Houston, Texas. It is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (Southern Baptist Convention). Its Cultural Arts Center hou ...

. After college, Stone was a broadcaster for the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

and the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma ...

.Ron Stone Biography
Stonefilms of Texas, retrieved 2008-05-13

Career

Television news career

Stone was born in Hanna, Oklahoma, graduated from

East Central University East Central University (ECU or East Central) is a public university in Ada, Oklahoma. It is part of Oklahoma's Regional University System. Beyond its flagship campus in Ada, the university has courses available in McAlester, Shawnee, and Duran ...

Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, ...

, then known as East Central State Teachers College, and worked in radio and television in several small Oklahoma markets. He was working at KVOO-TV (now

KJRH-TV KJRH-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Okmulgee-licensed Ion Television outlet KTPX-TV (channel 44). KJRH-TV's studios are located o ...

) in

Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

in 1961, when he caught the eye of

Dan Rather Daniel Irvin Rather Jr. (; born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist, commentator, and former national evening news anchor. Rather began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hur ...

, who was then KHOU Houston, Channel 11's lead anchor. Stone started his television news career at Houston

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 ...

affiliate

KHOU KHOU (channel 11) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Conroe-licensed Quest station KTBU (channel 55). Both stations share studios on Westheimer Road near Uptow ...

, where he worked for nearly a decade except for a ten-month period in 1967 where he went to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

to work as a news writer and reporter for the NBC Radio Network.Join Us to Celebrate Life at CanCare's Annual Survivors Day Luncheon
''About Life'', No. 2, 2006, retrieved 2008-05-13 In 1972, Stone moved to

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate

as anchor for what was known at the time as ''Big 2 News''. During his time at KPRC-TV, he co-anchored the news with

Paula Zahn Paula Ann Zahn (; born February 24, 1956) is an American journalist and newscaster who has been an anchor at ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, and CNN. She currently produces and hosts the true crime documentary series '' On the Case with Paula Zahn' ...

, who later anchored on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

and who worked with

Ron Franklin Ronald Franklin (February 2, 1942January 18, 2022) was an American sportscaster. He was employed by ESPN from 1987 to 2011. He was fired by ESPN on January 4, 2011, after making sexist comments to a colleague.ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

. Stone anchored the weekday editions of the ''ChannelTwoNews'' with Jan Carson from 1983 to 1991 and with Linda Lorelle during his final year at KPRC-TV.

Independent producer and other work

After retiring from television news in 1992, he started the production company, Stonefilms, Inc. with his son. In 1979, he succeeded Ray Miller (1919–2008) as host of

's ''

The Eyes of Texas "The Eyes of Texas" is the school spirit song of the University of Texas at Austin. It is set to the tune of " I've Been Working on the Railroad". Students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the university sing the song at Texas Longhorns sports g ...

'' cultural

anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...

. Stone hosted ''The Eyes of Texas'' until 1999. On May 21, 2002, he anchored the news for one evening as a commemorative celebration along with veteran meteorologist Doug Johnson (1939 - 1/3/2019) at

. He lived with

renal cell carcinoma Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is a kidney cancer that originates in the lining of the Proximal tubule, proximal convoluted tubule, a part of the very small tubes in the kidney that transport primary urine. RCC is the most common type of kidney cance ...

and gave motivational speeches about cancer survival. Stone died of cancer. He was 72.

Scholarly works

Stone wrote three books about Texas history, ''A Book of Texas Days'', ''Disaster at Texas City'', and ''Houston: Simply Spectacular''. He served as

Artist in Residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

in the Communications Department at the

University of St. Thomas St. Thomas University or University of St. Thomas may refer to: *Saint Thomas Aquinas University, Colombia *Saint Thomas Aquinas University of the North, Tucumán province, Argentina *St. Thomas University (Canada), Fredericton, New Brunswick *St. ...

in Houston.

Awards

*Communicator of the Year, 1990,

University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the university in Texas with over 47,000 students. Its campus, which is primarily in s ...

School of Communications *Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree, University of Houston, 1994

Professional membership

*Sons of the Republic of Texas *Knight of San JacintoPrevious Speakers and Chapter Activities in 2003
/ref>

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Ron 1936 births 2008 deaths Television anchors from Houston American television journalists People from McIntosh County, Oklahoma American male journalists Journalists from Oklahoma East Central University alumni Houston Christian University alumni 20th-century American journalists