TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Shapiro has almost left the building

ADVERTISEMENT

By WALT BELCHER

wbelcher@tampatrib.com

Published: October 23, 2009

When meteorologist Howard Shapiro first walked on the set of "Breakfast Beat" in 1974, it was a major culture shock.

"You're talking about a kid from New York, two days after arriving in Tampa, walking in and seeing Ernie Lee singing gospel music," he recalls. "And there was a guy named Barefoot Brownie playing bass."

Morning television was very different 35 years ago when Fox 13 was known as Big 13. WTVT, Channel 13, started the day with "Breakfast Beat," which included farm and fishing reports, and country music singer Lee.

Shapiro exits the Fox affiliate's "Good Day Tampa Bay" today, retiring at age 62. "I have my health and I want to enjoy life while I can," he says. He and his wife, Gail, are headed to Phoenix, where there are no hurricanes and he can ride his motorcycle to explore new places.

"Howard is an institution here, he will be missed," says WTVT news director Mike McClain. Shapiro's replacement will be announced soon.

"I was never a TV guy," says Shapiro. "I was a forecaster and I am still a forecaster at heart. I came to television through the back door."

Born in Jersey City, N.J., and raised in Long Island, he served in the Navy (including a year in Vietnam) before earning a meteorology degree in Oswego, N.Y. While there, he volunteered to give weather reports for free on a local cable channel.

This was his only TV experience before answering a job advertisement in the back of the American Journal of Meteorology for "a forecaster at something called Gulf Coast Weather Service," he says. "I didn't know that it was run out of a TV station."

Gulf Coast, a private weather service, was founded by WTVT's legendary former chief meteorologist Roy Leep.

Shapiro recalls when weather maps were drawn on paper; red and blue markers were used for highs and lows. Hurricane maps had cardboard arrows that sometimes fell off.

He remembers predicting snow one day in January 1977. The crew laughed at him, but when it happened he tossed a snowball at the camera.

"I still get a kick out of being on television," he says. "It's always been fun for me because I'm a meteorologist who got lucky."

He will miss the people but "life has always been a series of adventures and it's time for a new one."

MILLIONAIRE REPORT: Tampa Tribune reporter Ray Reyes is a contestant on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" on WTSP, Channel 10, at 4:30 today. He also appears on the Monday episode. You can read Reyes' first-person account of his adventure in Tuesday's Tribune.

NO CON JOB: "White Collar," an entertaining USA Network crime drama, debuts at 10 tonight. This clever, light-hearted mystery stars Matt Bomer as Neal, a cocky, playboy con artist who gets out of jail on the condition that he work with no-nonsense FBI agent Peter (Tim DeKay). But the FBI guy resents this care-free grifter. Diahann Carroll is a rich widow who gives Neal shelter. Tiffani Thiessen is Peter's sexy wife.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT