[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Page S11555]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO ALEC GIFFORD

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I pay tribute this morning to a great 
American journalist from New Orleans, LA. Alec Gifford will be formally 
retiring from WDSU in New Orleans this December after an 
extraordinarily lengthy, fulfilling, and energetic career covering 
politics and a whole range of issues over decades, including 
hurricanes, storms and other disasters. He even hosted, believe it or 
not, a cooking show.
  Alec came from a family of journalists. His father covered Governor 
Huey Long for the Times-Picayune, and his grandfather published one of 
the first local French language newspapers. So his family tradition has 
deep roots in Louisiana and in New Orleans. After serving in the U.S. 
Navy, Alec came to WDSU in 1955. He introduced the people of Louisiana 
to a very young Senator at the time, John F. Kennedy, as he sought to 
become--and ultimately did--the President of the United States. Just as 
we have spent many hours on this floor in recent months and years 
discussing the share of royalties that Louisiana should get from energy 
production off of our coast--and I believed I was the first on the 
story--I was corrected by my staff that Alec Gifford was one of the 
first on the story four decades ago.

  He asked Senator Kennedy his position on how these royalties would be 
handled when he came in to campaign for the Presidency back then. And 
he also pressed him on the Nation's path toward an equal education for 
all of our children during that extraordinary historic interview.
  Louisiana later gave all of its electoral votes to Senator Kennedy, 
who became our 35th President. We then, of course, passed major 
legislation for equal opportunity, and today or tomorrow we will be 
passing a historic piece of legislation on royalty sharing after all 
these many years.
  Alec was a journalist who always knew the important stories and 
managed to explain them to the people at home in a way they could grasp 
and understand the impact on their daily, everyday lives, and their 
future.
  But Alec really made a name for himself in 1965, demonstrating his 
dedication to the story when Hurricane Betsy struck Louisiana. While 
every other station had lost their ability to broadcast back in 1965--
the city and region were basically dark and shut down, and the winds 
were howling, and the waters were almost as high as during Katrina--
Alec stood in the path of the hurricane and brought images of the storm 
into every home that could receive a television signal.
  Forty years later, he was there again for us with Hurricanes Katrina 
and Rita. He evacuated himself to Jackson, MS, but stayed on the story, 
as many brave journalists did. But Alec has been doing this for so 
long. His accomplishments throughout this were singular. Working his 
way--scratching, crawling his way--back to New Orleans, like many of 
our journalists did, he continued to stay on the story.
  The hurricanes could not stop him. The flooding could not stop him. 
And in a few simple sentences, Alec Gifford illustrated the magnitude 
of the impact that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have had on Louisiana, 
when he said:

       This is nothing like Betsy. . . . Betsy was a horrible 
     storm. Betsy was a walk in the park. I cannot believe how 
     Katrina and Rita have turned our world upside down and 
     backward. Isn't it amazing how everything changes?

  But Alec has not changed at all over these decades. He has stayed 
resolute, committed to his craft, energetic, and absolutely consistent 
in his work ethic. He is almost 80 years young, and he has never slowed 
down. His colleague, Travers Mackel, can attest to that. He said:

       I'm 31 years old, and I have a tough time keeping up with 
     him. He's the first one in to work [in the morning] and the 
     last one out the door.

  His news director, Anzio Williams, said: ``I don't ever want to hear 
anybody complain,'' he says to his staff, ``about being overworked and 
overstressed. This guy, [referring to Alec], outworks everybody.''
  But after a half a century on the air, at WDSU, WVUE, and for NBC 
News, Alec has decided to retire. He has certainly left his mark on the 
news in New Orleans, hiring the next generation of WDSU in anchor Norm 
Robinson and reporter Richard Angelico--who both have done an 
outstanding job for our community--but he will now be able to spend 
more time with the people he cares about most, his wife Delores, his 
five children, and his eight grandchildren.
  He is truly part of the soul of our city, and a shining example of 
the best in his craft--a reporter to the core, a man willing to stay on 
the job, no matter what, to tell the story, to tell it right, to tell 
it clearly. Alec Gifford may be leaving the studio, but he is not 
leaving our hearts and our memories. I for one would not be surprised 
to see him on television again. I am sure he will come back in a 
different capacity, in a different way, but this Senator would like to 
say how much I have personally appreciated his service to our community 
and wanted to pay tribute to Alec Gifford today on the eve of his 
retirement from WDSU.

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