In his voice, decades of history
From the Beatles' first visit to the United States through the horrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, Gary LaPierre has covered it all. The veteran WBZ-AM (1030) anchorman has spent nearly 45 years in the business, 42 of them at the CBS news station, working his way up from the mailroom to helming the morning news.
''Most people read about history," says LaPierre, who has announced that he will retire in December from the 4 to 9:30 a.m. show he co-anchors with Deb Lawler. ''For 40-plus years I've had a chance to participate in history." For LaPierre, now 64, that history started early. After graduating from the now-defunct Grahm Junior College, the Shelburne Falls native took a job in the 'BZ mailroom. Two years at New Hampshire news stations followed, and in March 1964, he came back to the Boston station as a general assignment reporter. One month later, his first big story put him in pop history: The Beatles were coming to town.
''I was assigned to meet them at Hanscom Field at 12:30 in the morning and travel with them into Boston," recalls LaPierre. ''I stayed with them for two days. That was a kick and a half." Although the reporter calls himself ''a music fan," he points out that at 22, he was ''an old man. I'm Paul's age, but I was married with kids!"
Although he also took on morning anchor duties in 1966, LaPierre continued reporting well into the '90s. It was, he says now, an invaluable education. ''My introduction to politics was the Democratic National Convention of 1968. I was in Chicago," where he recalls the protests and turmoil. Back home, he covered ''the riots of the '60s. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the streets of Boston got a little ugly."
He also covered the Albert DeSalvo trial for the Boston Strangler murders. And ''everything from world-shattering events to chasing fire trucks and politicians," he says.
That includes being at work on the bright, sunny morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
''I was in the middle of the 9 o'clock news, and we were getting news that something, maybe a small plane had hit the World Trade Center," he recalls. ''I flipped the news to CNN and we were looking at pictures, seeing a little bit of smoke. And I start talking, and all of a sudden I see the second plane come around and hit. I had to pull from every resource, I had to come up with the calm and the vocabulary and expertise to try to come up with the words to tell people what was going on."
Rather than sign off, LaPierre stayed on air for several more hours. His goal, he says, was to offer the best in radio journalism. ''A newspaper story you can reread if you don't understand it," he says. ''TV has the extra dimension of the visual. I don't have that luxury. I'm yakking at you at about 200 words per minute. I have one shot. If I miss that one shot, it's gone. Radio journalism has to be precise, accurate, and succinct."
