A Legacy on the Air

By Mike Costanza

When 13 WHAM News reporter and associate news director Don Alhart signed off for the last time on June 6, the 80-year-old left behind a legacy that could be tough to match.

“His presence will be missed,” said Chuck Samuels, WHAM’s vice president and general manager. “There’s only one Don Alhart.”

During his 58 years in television news, Alhart covered the story of a woman who literally rocked for charity, reported on the 1971 Attica prison uprising from the scene and anchored or co-anchored newscasts on the devastating 1991 ice storm and the 2001 terrorist attacks. He was honored five times with the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards for his news writing and newscasts and inducted into the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. In 2017, Guinness World Records named him the man that held the “longest career as a TV news broadcaster.”

That record still stands. To top it all off, though his name is synonymous with television news in the Rochester area, Alhart conducts himself like a regular guy.

“The Don Alhart you see on TV is the Don Alhart you see in person,” Samuels said. “He’s genuine.”

This writer interviewed Alhart in 2009, when he was featured on the cover of the very first issue of 55-PLUS and again after he made the pages of Guinness World Records. Last April, the Pittsford resident sat down again to talk about his approaching retirement.

Alhart acquired the broadcasting bug at Penfield’s Indian Landing Elementary School, where his fifth-grade teacher erected a small radio station in one corner of the classroom. Intrigued by the idea of radio broadcasting, he and Peter Burrell, his friend and classmate, bought microphones, record turntables and other equipment and set up “radio stations” in their bedrooms. Running wires from the setups to speakers in other parts of their houses, the two “broadcast” interviews of family members and other news.

“Don and I were kind of nerds,” Burrell said. “He was heavy and I was real skinny, but we both had a sense of showbiz and we both liked to entertain folks and make them laugh.”

When they entered Penfield High School, the pair talked their principal into allowing them to “broadcast” over its public address system. They’d give the morning announcements, then turn the mic over to their principal for an update. If the school had a dance coming up, they’d get a local disk jockey to record a short piece, which they’d play over the PA system as a commercial.

The two teenagers also helped organize concerts that brought The Lettermen, Gap and Chuck Mangione and other famous musicians to their school. They tried to get the classic 1960s rock group Joey Dee and the Starlighters to give a concert, but ran into a snag with Joseph “Joey Dee” DiNicola, the group’s founder.

“We couldn’t get Joey Dee, but we got the Starlighters,” Alhart said. “We billed it as ‘Joey Dee’s Starlighters.’”

Burrell and Alhart remained close friends as they went on to make their careers.

“He went into news and I have spent a career in producing television and movies in California,’ Burrell said.

Burrell produced the movies “Smokey and the Bandit II” and “Jingle All the Way,” was the production manager for the film “The Natural” and was involved in other productions before he retired.

Alhart joined WOKR, WHAM- TV’s precursor, as a reporter on June 6, 1966. Back then the station was located in downtown Rochester. On slow news days, reporters might search the daily newspapers for news copy — Rochester had two of them.

“We’d go down and pick up the Times Union at Main and Clinton and dig stories out,” Alhart said.

All news copy was typed and the “teleprompter” that anchors used during their newscasts consisted of a kind of conveyor belt of scripts.

“You could hardly read any of them,” Alhart said.

One of his favorite stories from those early years was about Glenna Oberdorf, who lived in a small community south of Rochester.

“She was going to set a record for rocking in a rocking chair to raise money for the Red Cross,” Alhart said. “I guess I always was inclined to those kinds of stories that would be the most memorable.”

That desire to highlight the positive came out in many ways, including the “Bright Spots” with which Alhart ended almost all of his newscasts. Each was a very short, uplifting feature about a person or organization that was benefiting the community. Even on the day the World Trade Centers towers fell, he found a subject for the feature.

“The ‘Bright Spot’ that day was showing the compassion that people had, showing the patriotism that people had, showing that even in a tragic event…we can find something that highlights the good of human beings,” Alhart said.

At such times, Alhart’s experience and leadership skills helped WHAM’s news team weather the crisis. Ginny Ryan worked with Alhart as a reporter and anchor for WHAM for 35 years before moving on to the Canandaigua National Bank & Trust, where she is senior vice president and director of community engagement.

“He always showed that leadership and direction when we needed it,” Ryan said “We all knew what to do, and we came together as a team.”

When things grew particularly difficult in the newsroom, Alhart might lighten the mood with a joke or bring out his bowling pin. The pin has a history all its own.

For many years, The Arc of Monroe, which serves those who have intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families, had a bowling league. Each year, more than 300 of the people whom the nonprofit served gathered into teams and headed out to local bowling alleys to compete. At the end of the season, they and their families came to the annual bowling banquet, where the winning teams were presented with their awards.

Alhart emceed the banquet year-after-year from 1974 until the early 2000s, when it was no longer held. He particularly enjoyed handing out the trophies.

“It was probably the most emotional and wonderful community event I did every year,” he said.

One year, in recognition of his support, the bowling league’s members presented him with a gift.

“All the members of the bowling league had signed a bowling pin and presented that to me as my trophy, which I cherish,” Alhart said.

It came in handy when times grew tense in the newsroom.

“He would go into his office and bring out his bowling pin and drop it onto the floor and say ‘It’s so quiet in here, you could hear a pin drop,’” Ryan said. “I laughed every time.”

Samuels, who has been with WHAM for 28 years, said that despite Alhart’s stature in Rochester’s news community, he never took on airs.

“There’s a lot of people in the visual medium — I’ve seen it many times over the years — who just want to be on TV or in the movies. They want to be famous,” Samuels said. “That’s not Don.”

That unassuming way showed on-camera. Around the time of the opening of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Alhart was in that city for a Rotary District 7120 conference. While there, he anchored part of the six o’clock news.

“Don comes out at the very end of the newscast wearing an Elvis wig,” Samuels said. “I thought “Don is not afraid to be himself on television.’”

In addition to covering stories and holding the anchor desk, Alhart was also very willing to share his knowledge and expertise with others in the newsroom.

“He has mentored a great many people over the years,” Samuels said.

In addition to his work in the newsroom, Alhart has given his time and energy to local nonprofits, particularly the Rochester Rotary Club, which he first joined in 1976.

“He’s your ultimate rotarian,” said Rochester Rotary Club executive director Tracey Dreisbach, who has known Alhart for 27 years. “He is that person who puts service above self and does it whether it’s in the rotary world or in our community.”

Alhart has been particularly supportive of the Rotary Sunshine Camp. Located in rural Rush, New York, the camp gives children and teenagers with paralysis and other physical challenges, and their families, the chance to enjoy the outdoors during the summer months. To get a sense of what some of those campers had to overcome, Alhart stayed there to take care of kids who had cerebral palsy.

“He actually stayed overnight…to really get the firsthand experience, as you would expect a reporter would,” Dreisbach said. “That really, I think, was a life-changing experience for him.”

Some of his charges needed to have their diapers changed before bed. Alhart also consistently attends local and out-of-town rotary club meetings, is a past president of the Rochester Rotary and was once the governor of Rotary District 7120, which encompasses the 67 rotary clubs in this part of the state.

Other nonprofits have also benefited from Alhart’s assistance or support. In 2020, he self-published a children’s book, “Sibley’s Christmas Adventure.”Sibley, the principal character, is a mouse who lives on the fourth floor of the now-defunct Sibley’s department store. All of the proceeds from the book’s sale have gone to The Arc of Monroe.

When he looked back on his many years in television news, Alhart credited Mary, his wife of 54 years, for making many of his accomplishments possible.

“When you raise a family, it puts a lot more responsibility on her because of my hours and responsibilities,” Alhart said. “[At] the Little League game, I would be the father who showed up in a suit and tie at the top of the fourth inning and left at the bottom of the fifth to go back and do the 11 o’clock news. My wife was always there for the kids.”

Alhart met the young woman who became his wife in 1968, when she was a contestant in the Miss Rochester Pageant, which WHAM sponsored. They married in 1970 and now have three grown children and six grandchildren.

During our April interview, as he contemplated retiring, Alhart mused about what he might do after he stepped away from WHAM’s cameras for the last time.

He’d already begun winding down his time at the station and by April was working only four days a week. The reduced schedule had allowed him to vacation with Mary in Aruba for three weeks, which his job would have prevented in the past and they had planned or were contemplating other trips after he retired.

Alhart also planned to continue supporting local nonprofits, but knew he would miss covering stories on the air.

“I’ll still be me, and I’ll still be doing things in the community, but I’ll be the ‘Walter Cronkite,’ the guy that used to be on TV,’” he said, laughing.