Traveling Mississippi roads, Walt Grayson tells the stories of our state
Photographs by Melanie Thortis
In every corner of Mississippi’s 82 counties, Walt Grayson has found a story. Some, the Jackson TV personality has realized, weren’t so great, “but you don’t have the option of coming back without one. You make what you have into a story or find another one while you’re there.”
On assignment for Jackson’s WLBT, Grayson has criss-crossed the state, telling viewers stories of people, places, fowl, fauna and even ghosts and, along the way, has become one of Mississippi’s most recognized faces and voices.
At age 65, he figures he has filmed, narrated and edited more than 6,000 stories in 30 years.
He grew up in Greenville, a city boy “but just barely because our house was the first one inside the city limits.” The elementary school was so near the river that the levee was part of the playgrounds. In 1967, his senior year, he went to work for a radio station, signing on at 5 a.m., working until 7:30 before heading to class and heading back to the station for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Along with a diploma, he earned a third-class radio operator’s license, a requirement to run a station.
One of his favorite subjects in high school was history “because I liked stories,” but at Mississippi College he prepared for a life in the ministry. For a time he pastored a country church, and though, “I enjoyed every minute of it,” he realized that was not his calling. Remembering those days he describes Sunday dinners at the homes of church members as about the only good food a college student had all week.
Walt began his Jackson career at WSLI radio along with the legendary Farmer Jim and his feist dog. The station was across the road from Channel 12, where Bob Neblett was presenting the weather. There was an opening at the TV station so Walt applied for the job, was hired and, “I did weekend weather for years. Nobody remembers how long. I vaguely remember.”
A series of buyouts created an opening at Channel 3 and Bert Case hired Walt to present the 10 o’clock weather and an occasional story. He worked a split-shift, afternoon, home for supper, then back to the station. He wanted a full-time job “and I kept rooting for Woodie Assaf to either retire or die, but he wouldn’t do either one.” (Walt told that story at Assaf’s funeral and repeated it later at the request of Assaf’s family).
What led to his popular TV series was a picture on the office wall of the ruins of Windsor in Claiborne County. He had no idea of what or where it was or that there was anything like that in Mississippi. He thought it might be the remnants of some castle in Europe, only to find out it was just a few hours away.
On an assignment in Port Gibson, and with time to spare, he and the photographer went to Windsor where his cohort took countless artsy pictures of the stately, decaying columns. Back in the studio, Walt put the pictures together “and wrote something that I’m sure I thought was just this side of poetic and put it with the pictures.” After that, his job began to shift toward travel features.
A problem was that he couldn’t always get a photographer, but that was solved after a merger with a Texas station. Money that had been invested in pension plans of profit sharing was refunded, and Walt used his to buy a TV camera, “and I’ve been shooting my own stuff ever since.” The result was, “Turn me loose, and I’ll show up with a couple of good stories every week.”
The long-range result is that he has been to every county and courthouse in the state, to make nooks and corners of Mississippi, to places that are no longer on the map, finally to Michigan City and Ashland in Benton County.
In every place, there has been a story.
In addition to “Look Around Mississippi,” he also has a show, “Mississippi Roads,” on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Though he really likes doing the work himself, on public TV he has a full crew.
Ideas for stories come from friends, folks who call with suggestions, from the Internet and often, while working on one story, another comes up. “They just kind of come to me,” he said. The stories run the gamut of subjects: travel, art, nature, festivals and celebrations, music, history, food, inventions. There is no limit.
He also has reported strange tales, such as the Flying Squirrel Ranch, which actually was only one room in a double wide trailer, or the Elvis Presley B&B, which was a cinder-block house originally built as a home for wayward girls.
For an hour-long show during the Civil War Sesquicentennial about the Siege of Vicksburg, Walt said he almost worked himself to death, but the film won first place in the Governor’s Tourist Award competition.
Being featured on a Walt Grayson show might entertain, bring fame or increase business, but there was one very unusual result when he filmed the octagonal mansion Longwood in Natchez. He asked the manager, Mrs. Mae Burns, if the house was haunted, and she replied, “Oh, Lord, yes,” and related several ghost stories.
“As I was leaving, I got to thinking that not everybody wants it publicized that their house is haunted, so I asked if it was OK to put these stories on TV.”
“Oh, please!” she replied. “It helps so much with security.”
Is there an archive of his stories? Closets are full of them, he laughed, and said they show a time when he didn’t wear glasses, had long black hair and was 40 pounds lighter.
Walt has authored two coffee table books based on his travels around the state and is a frequent speaker, sometimes without notice. A few years ago when attending an all-day meeting and dinner on the grounds at a historic Methodist church he was asked to preach when the minister failed to come. He told the congregation that he was an ordained Baptist minister, but not to worry, he would not talk long because he, too, could smell the aroma of the food from under the trees.
Walt doesn’t plan to retire. Instead, he plans to “keep on doing pretty much what I’m doing now. It’s been lots of fun. I don’t know what else I would have done. It’s work that I want to do.”
STORY Gordon Cotton
PHOTOGRAPHS Melanie Thortis
