Wednesday, April 26; 12:00—1:00 PM
Location: Meeting Room via Zoom and Online via Zoom
Mr. Spelce will NOT be at the library in-person
Register Here for In-Library Viewing
Register Here for Online via Zoom
DSCL welcomes prize-winning author and local TV journalist Neal Spelce who will share entertaining and never-before-told insights in his memoir about politicians, celebrities, and a few rascals! Without taking a political stance, his interactions with LBJ and four other presidents both Democrat and Republican, his live coverage during the first US mass school shooting from atop the Tower on the University of Texas campus on August 1, 1966, and his witty, self-deprecating observations will be sure to trigger your questions and reaction.
Neal Spelce’s six-decade career has been distinguished by successes in radio, television, journalism, marketing, advertising, public relations, broadcast program syndication, public speaking, and consulting.
He has either interviewed, photographed, or associated with presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. He received the nation’s highest award for radio reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Headliners First Place Award for “outstanding television news reporting.” He was named Austin’s Most Worthy Citizen for his civic and charitable work.
In other business pursuits, he received the nation’s highest award for Public Relations, was accorded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Austin Advertising Federation, and received the Lifetime Trailblazer Award from the American Women in Radio and Television.
Neal is a Distinguished Graduate of the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. The Moody College recently named the Neal Spelce Broadcast Journalism Studio in his honor.
His first memoir, With the Bark Off, A Journalist’s Memories of LBJ and a Life in the News Media, is published by the University of Texas Briscoe Center for American History. Neal has donated his personal papers to the Briscoe Center as well as more than 300 90-second TV vignettes under the titles of “An American Moment™ with Charles Kuralt” and “An American Moment™ with James Earl Jones.”