Remembering Charles Kuralt,

In February 2000, I finished writing a 288-page manuscript. Weeks later, the Charlotte Observer published a three-page expose on Kuralt’s double life, revealing details of his 29-year extramarital affair with Montana resident Patricia Shannon. Although Kuralt was once again in the national news, his legacy was tarnished for some. The publishers I had been working with said Kuralt had ruined his reputation and that there was no longer a market for the book.

To prove the publishers wrong and show that the American people were forgiving and would want to remember Kuralt for the good deeds he did, I decided to borrow against my home to publish 3,700 hard-cover copies of the book. The book, released on the anniversary of Kuralt’s death (July 4, 2000) sold out within six months.

Globe-Pequot Press reprinted Remembering Charles Kuralt in September of 2001. For those who loved Kuralt, Remembering Charles Kuralt, serves as a virtual tribute to one of the world’s greatest reporters and story-tellers.

Remembering Charles Kuralt (First Edition, July 2000, Kenilworth Media; Second Edition, September 2001, Globe Pequot)

Charles Kuralt’s People

Written while Kuralt was a reporter for the Charlotte News, “People” appears collectively in print for the first time ever. The 169 columns, written when Kuralt was only 22, represent some of the bard’s best work and mark the beginning of a dialog that the journalist continued with Americans for more than four decades.Resonating with themes of hope and goodness, “People” still appears as fresh and relevant today as in 1956, a testament to the extraordinary talent of a reporter who found stories where no one else thought to look.

“Each day I would seek out some cop or kid or cab driver,” Kuralt wrote of his experience at the Charlotte News, “and tell his story in a few hundred words . . . I used to walk bravely up to panhandlers and crapshooters – the sort of people others avoided – and strike up conversation.”Those conversations will ring familiar to those who watched Kuralt’s Emmy-winning television shows “On the Road” and “Sunday Morning.” Kuralt’s style and substance were essentially unchanged over the years – from his days as a rookie reporter to his final years as a veteran journalist.

“Kuralt’s writing is sensitive, warm with affection for obscure people, and with excellent touches of humor where that is needed,” commented a panel of judges who awarded young Kuralt the prestigious Ernie Pyle Award for his columns.
Now, nearly five decades later, Charles Kuralt’s sensitivity, warmth and humor continue to echo in these profiles of ordinary – and often unnoticed – people.

“People” will strike a chord with those who remember – and perhaps long for -a time when life was simpler – and with those who did not get enough of the comforting voice and practical wisdom of the CBS newsman who died July 4, 1997.