Gary DeLaune
With a career spanning five decades, iconic San Antonio broadcaster and journalist Gary DeLaune helped change the way news was reported.
With his list of “firsts” DeLaune became an icon. From being the first to announce Tom Laundry’s 10 year contract, to being the first newsman to broadcast the bulletin that President Kennedy had been shot by a sniper in Dallas, LeLaune’s voice has brought breaking news to the ears of listeners across the nation.
Originally from Kansas, he graduated from Oklahoma University with a BA in Communications. After serving in the U.S. Army he worked as an assistant to Chick Hearn at KNX in Los Angeles.
He began his Texas radio and television broadcast career in 1960, first at WFAA, KLIF and KDFW-TV in Dallas, then KNUZ and KQUE in Houston and finally at KENS-TV in San Antonio, where he worked for 28 years as a reporter, producer and sports anchor.
DeLaune has received numerous journalism awards including the Associated Press Best Radio Documentary Award for “Jack Ruby’s Eleventh Hour”; (1967), the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Best Television Sports Feature (1975 and 1990), the AP Best Feature Award (1975) and the Associated Press Best Spot News Award (1979).
In 1968, he was the first to report on a multi-organ transplant performed by Dr. Michael DeBakey. In 1973 he was the first San Antonio sportscaster to become a member of the Spurs basketball broadcast team. He has been a two-term president of the Texas Associated Press Broadcasters Association.
He has appeared in two Universal Studio Movies, playing the part of a sportscaster. DeLaune owns Gary DeLaune Productions which has produced 15 sports and news documentary which included “Hail Mary…20 Years Later” the story of the famous pass from Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson and the German production, “Deutschlandt Democracy After The Wall”.