Alabama newsman Mel Showers, 78, died on Oct. 19. After serving in the Air Force and as a Military Intelligence Analyst, he joined WKRG-TV in 1969, becoming an on-air reporter by 1974 and co-anchor of the station’s morning show. In 1990, he was promoted to evening news anchor, one of the first black journalists to hold that post in Alabama. He retired in 2019. “I had a good support system from the station,” Showers said. “They told me not to worry about the [negative] calls and to just do my job. If I was sitting by a white co-anchor, I told them not to touch me on the air; people were not ready for that. I started to catch on with the viewing public, hate mail changed to fan mail.”
Mostly, I think of him as one of the men I would love to have married, just so I could hyphenate my name.
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