Wes Wise joins Co-author Bill Mercer in Texas Radio Hall of Fame

Former Dallas mayor Wes Wise, who pioneered baseball play-by-play with Gordon McLendon in the 1940s, will be inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame on November 5. Wise joins his former colleague and co-author Bill Mercer, who has been in the Hall of Fame for several years.

Wise and Mercer, both famous play-by-play announcers, are co-authors of the nationally acclaimed book When the News Went Live: Dallas 1963, written with their old colleagues Bob Huffaker and George Phenix. The book is their compelling first-person account of covering the JFK assassination and its aftermath for CBS and KRLD News. These veteran broadcasters also discuss developments in today's broadcast journalism. The four will be featured at the Texas Book Festival in October, and they have won several regional honors, including Southwest Authors of the Year. The well-received When the News Went Live has been praised by Dan Rather, Jim Lehrer, Bob Schieffer, Walter Cronkite and other top journalists.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Wes Wise was a well-known baseball play-by-play announcer for the nationwide Liberty Broadcasting System. At Ameriquest Field, home of the Texas Rangers, the Legends of the Game Museum features a replica of the radio studio where Wise and Gordon McLendon re-created major league baseball broadcasts. Beside the antique microphone hangs the bat that Wise and the Old Scotsman struck for sound effects to accompany disc recordings of crowd noise. Historic audio of their early re-creations accompanies the radio exhibit, and high on a wall above the museum's entry room, a giant enlarged photo sets the mood for old-time baseball: a panoramic shot that young Wes Wise took from the roof of the old Polo Grounds in 1951 when he was still in the Army.

Wise was Southwest Correspondent for Sports Illustrated, and he wrote for Time and Life. As a journalist, Wise won numerous awards including three Press Club of Dallas "Katies" and the Southwest Journalism Forum award from Southern Methodist University for "continued excellence in journalism." 

Wise was elected Mayor of Dallas in 1971, serving five years in that  office after four as a councilman. He was President of the Texas Municipal League and a board member of the US Conference of Mayors. 

He lives with his wife, Sally, on Cedar Creek Lake and divides time  between there and Dallas, where he remains active in public affairs. 

Wes Wise touched more important developments of the assassination  story than most reporters. The month before Kennedy's ill-fated visit, Wise, as Dallas Press Club president, escorted Adlai Stevenson at the day's press conference before covering that night's fateful attacks upon the UN Ambassador. After capturing the only film of that fiasco, Wise helped federal agents prepare security for JFK's Dallas visit. 

Wise covered the presidential motorcade, played a double role at the  president's aborted luncheon, encountered Jack Ruby the day before he shot Oswald, waited at the county jail for the Oswald transfer that went wrong, and testified for both sides in the Ruby trial. 

In his five years as Dallas' mayor, Wes Wise helped the city overcome  its tarnished reputation.  He not only reported this segment of history; he made some of it himself.

As a reporter, he set records straight; as Dallas' first  independent mayor in decades, he helped the city toward racial equity, guided it through desegregation and the uneasy Sixties, fought to memorialize JFK's life and death, and with support of his fellow Dallasites, pulled the city  up from international disgrace. 

The Texas Radio Hall of Fame induction takes place November 5 at the  Dallas-Addison Marriott Quorum, near the Galleria. Individual tickets are $59. Tables for 10 are $650. The event is open to the public, and tickets are available at www.texasradiohalloffame.com.