John Hambrick - Courage, Dignity & Grace

Editors Note: This is a re-mix in an attempt to improve the quality of the video. Frankly I was not happy with the previous effort although it had 170 view, 11 likes & no dislikes.I have added a picture of his mother, the object of the song and made other improvements. In a related development we have learned that the PBS TV Network will begin a Ken Burns produced series on The Dust Bowl. It is scheduled to air in November. Watch you local listings. Following the final scene in the movie classic, adapted from John Steinbeck's great novel, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, we hear John Hambrick's ode to his mother in one of three albums he ever made.He wrote & sang the songs on WINDMILLS IN A JET FILLED SKY. He was, after all, a veteran TV newsman.He died: September 10, 2013. There follows parts of his obit from the Cleveland Plains Dealer: "CLEVELAND, Ohio -- John Hambrick, the charismatic news anchor who helped WEWS Channel 5's "Eyewitness News" bolt from third to first place in the early 1970s, died Tuesday under hospice care at Scott & White Hospital in Round Rock, Texas. He was 73 years old. Hambrick was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year. It metastasized and spread throughout his body, including his brain. In mid-July, doctors told him he had only a few weeks to live. "My father was a proud Texan, but he was always so appreciative of Cleveland and how well people treated him early in his career," said his son, Jack Hambrick, a former TV reporter who operates the online site The Digital Texan. "He never forgot that. And he was always proud to have been a part of the famed WEWS Eyewitness News team from the late '60s and early '70s." A Texas native, Hambrick settled in Georgetown, a city north of Austin, after retiring from television. He began his TV career in Texas, in 1963, at a station in Abilene. He was working at WCPO Channel 9, the Cincinnati station owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, when stations in Detroit and Cleveland courted him in 1967. The 27-year-old Hambrick opted for Northeast Ohio, starting an eight-year stint at Scripps-owned Channel 5 on Christmas Day, 1967. "I was running the news department at the time, and in the fall of 1967, Don Perris [the station's general manager] asked me to go to Cincinnati to talk to this guy named John Hambrick," said Fred Griffith, later host of Channel 5's "Morning Exchange." "John was thinking of going to Detroit, and Don wanted to make sure he'd come to Cleveland. Well, we hit it off." The ideal anchor for the station's new "Eyewitness News" format, Hambrick was an instrumental part of a team that pulled ahead of its local rivals in the ratings. "John was a natural actor, and he know how to deliver a line in a powerful and engaging way," Griffith said. "He was good looking, athletic, smart as hell and had a very strong presence. With John in the anchor chair, the newscast just went through a metamorphosis and turned into something very, very special." His "Eyewitness News" colleagues included weatherman Don Webster, sports anchor Gib Shanley and commentator Dorothy Fuldheim. Dave Patterson became Hambrick's co-anchor in 1970. "When John arrived at TV5, we were not doing well," Webster said. "Don Perris put John, Gib, Dorothy and me together. It was chemistry not to be believed. John was a pro immediately. He didn't want the spotlight. He knew if he had the best stuff one night, then Gib, Dorothy or me had it another night, that was fine. We were all friends in and out of the building and the viewers knew it." Hambrick left Channel 5 in 1975 and was replaced by Ted Henry. He spent two years as an anchor at KABC Channel 7 in Los Angeles and three years at KRON Channel 4 in San Fancisco before starting a five-year run at WNBC Channel 4 in New York in January 1980. "The years at WEWS were extremely important to my career," Hambrick told The Plain Dealer July 22, responding to questions by e-mail. "In fact, they jump-started it. While I appreciate the subsequent years in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Miami and a short stint in Beaumont, Texas, I often wonder how things would have turned out had I stayed in Cleveland." Hambrick moved to Miami in mid-1985, working as an anchor at WTVJ and WCIX until September 1993. He is the oldest of three Hambrick brothers who became news anchors in major markets. Five years younger, Judd Hambrick, was an anchor in Cleveland at WKYC Channel 3 and WJKW (now WJW) Channel 8. The third brother, Mike, has been a reporter and anchor in Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Dallas and Washington, D.C. He had brief run as a noon anchor at Channel 5.