John Drury, one of Chicago's most prominent and beloved faces behind the anchor desk, was a local institution in television news.
Mr. Drury, 80, died Sunday, Nov. 25, surrounded by family in his home in Wheaton after a nearly three-year struggle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.Mr. Drury was born in Aurora and had early aspirations of being a performer. But after graduating from West Aurora High School in 1945 and serving in World War II with the Navy, Mr. Drury found a new passion in broadcast news.
He got his first job in television in 1950 at a station in Davenport, Iowa, after graduating from the University of Iowa. He also worked radio and TV jobs in Ft. Wayne, Ind., and Indianapolis, but returning to Chicago was always his goal.
In 1962 he was lured to Chicago by WBBM-Ch. 2 after spending six years at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee.
"I always wanted to work in Chicago," he told the Tribune in 2002. "The other stations for me were just steppingstones."
He spent five years at WBBM, working with the likes of Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson and serving as Fahey Flynn's first co-anchor. In 1967 he jumped to WGN-Ch. 9 to anchor the 10 p.m. news broadcast. WGN, like the Chicago Tribune, is owned by Tribune Co.
Three years later, he moved to the anchors desk at WLS-Ch. 7. Mr. Drury would spend the rest of his career between WGN and WLS, changing stations but always remaining a trusted presence behind the anchors desk until his retirement in 2002.
He considered himself first a reporter and then an anchor, said WGN news veteran Robert Jordan, who worked with the broadcaster from 1980 to 1984 during one of Mr. Drury's stints with Channel 9.
His looks and voice notwithstanding, Mr. Drury "was a very serious journalist," Jordan said.
"He was just a wonderful guy. He had a million stories," Jordan said.
Mr. Drury helped break the mold of the stationary anchor.
"John was kind of the first of a new breed. He loved to go out and report," Jordan said. "He just happened to be a handsome guy with a wonderful voice."
Over four decades reporting the news in Chicago, Mr. Drury won several awards and garnered critical praise for his credible approach to local news reporting, including Emmy Awards for Individual Excellence in 1983, 1987 and 1988 and, most recently, an Emmy in 2003 for his special report "9/11/02 The New Homeland."
In 2002, Mr. Drury was named Illinois Journalist of the Year by the journalism department at Northern Illinois University and won the Chicago Press Veteran of the Year award from the Chicago Press Veterans Association. In that same year, he also received the Award for Excellence in Journalism from the City Club of Chicago.
In 1996, Mr. Drury's peers in Chicago journalism named him to the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame and awarded him with the prestigious Silver Circle Award for 25 years of outstanding contributions to Chicago television.
But Mr. Drury's work was also widely recognized for contributing to the fabric of the city of Chicago as a whole. In 2000, Mr. Drury was honored by the Museum of Broadcast Communications for valuable contributions to Chicago's broadcast history and named Man of the Year by the Chicago Advertising Club.
Throughout his career, Mr. Drury balanced his serious approach to news with a healthy sense of humor about the business. In his interview with the Tribune after his retirement, he said he was so discouraged by newsroom tumult that he once enrolled in a training class for McDonald's franchise owners.
For two years he spent weekends dropping fries, ringing up customers and, in his TV voice, taking customers' drive-through orders.
"Several of them said, 'You ought to be in radio,' " he said.
That attitude carried him through difficult years after his retirement. In 2004, Mr. Drury was diagnosed with ALS and suffered muscular degeneration to such an extent that he was able to speak only with the help of a voice box.
But despite the personal difficulties of the disease, Mr. Drury used his prominence to be an advocate for research.
In a statement read on WLS' 10 p.m. newscast, Mr. Drury's family said: "Not only did he fight ALS, he gave back to the community by raising awareness of this disease."
Mr. Drury is survived by his wife, Ann; three sons, Logan, James and Richard; a daughter, Susan; a stepdaughter, Joanne Campanile; a stepson, Anthony Guercio; and 10 grandchildren. Services will be private.
Source :
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-drury_copynov26,1,3451799.storyPowered by ScribeFire.
