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 Greate ...

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

for 20 years from 1973 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, 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''. ...

''. 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 (HBU), is a private Baptist university in Houston, Texas. It is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Its Cultural Arts Center houses three museums: the ...

. After college, Stone was a broadcaster for the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

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 also included schools from Oklaho ...

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

Career

Television news career

Stone was born in Hanna,

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

, 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 ...

in Ada, 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 locate ...

) in

Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...

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. He began his career in Texas, becoming a national name after his reporting saved thousands of lives during Hurrica ...

, 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 (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

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). The two stations share studios on Westheimer Road near ...

, where he worked for nearly a decade except for a six-month period in 1968 where he went to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

to work as a news writer and reporter for the

NBC Radio Network The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (also known as the NBC Red Network from 1927 to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in continuous operation from 1926 through 1999. Along with the NBC Blue Network, it wa ...

.Join Us to Celebrate Life at CanCare's Annual Survivors Day Luncheon
''About Life'', No. 2, 2006, retrieved 2008-05-13 In December of 1973, Stone moved to

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

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 Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

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 allegedly making sexist comments to a colleague.

before his eventual move to

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

. 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'' cultural

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

. 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 (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

in the Communications Department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

Awards

*Communicator of the Year, 1990,

University of Houston The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...

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
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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