Harry Mabry
Harry Mabry was a television news director and anchor in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama.
Early life
Born January 11, 1932, in Philadelphia, Mabry moved with his parents to Birmingham at an early age. Following his graduation from Phillips High School in 1948, he attended the University of Alabama, where he received a degree in Radio-TV in 1953. Even before graduating college, he was employed as an announcer by WHMA Radio in Anniston from 1949 to 1952, and worked for a year at Atlanta's WAGA in 1952. From 1953 to 1956 he was a decorated Navy communications officer, serving primarily in Osaka, Japan.Career in Memphis
Following his discharge in 1956 and until 1958, Mabry was a staff announcer for WMCT-TV, now WMC-TV, in Memphis, Tennessee. Among other duties he hosted the live afternoon children's show "Looney Zoo" in his "Looney Zookeeper" uniform. The show was based around the Looney Tunes cartoons and included three puppet co-hosts and a live studio audience. Mabry also anchored local news casts at the station, and became notorious in Memphis for moving his desk from the studio to outside the station, conducting a late-night news cast in the season's first snowfall.Return to Birmingham
Mabry returned to Birmingham in 1958 as news editor and established editorial policy at WBRC-TV, channel 6, where he also worked as an on-air anchor. He remained in Birmingham with WBRC throughout the 1960s, where some of his most important reporting was on the civil rights movement. Mabry is responsible for much of the film footage documenting the civil rights movement in Birmingham, and was often seen standing to the side of protests attempting to protect his camera from the spray of the fire houses while continuing to film the altercations between the protestors and the Birmingham Police and Fire Departments.Move to Anniston
In 1969, Mabry moved to Anniston to launch WHMA-TV, channel 40, as both general manager and news director/anchor, remaining for twenty years. It was during this time that the station gained infamy when, following several phone calls in which he threatened to do so, an unemployed carpenter in a nearby town was filmed by a camera crew from Mabry's station as he set himself on fire in a drunken protest against unemployment. Mabry was very much affected by this incident, not only shaken by the fact that someone would commit such an act, but also frustrated by the public outcry that followed. It was never widely noted that local law enforcement failed to intervene and prevent the self-immolation, as they had promised.In 1983 following a series of adverse Federal Communications Commission and court rulings, the station was sold to Jacksonville State University, who renamed it WJSU. After only three years and at a $2.6 million profit, Jacksonville State sold the station, beginning a string of new owners. In 1989, Mabry returned to WBRC, and until 1991 Mabry was general manager of that station's East Alabama bureau, based in Anniston. After 1991 he continued in the field as a contract independent communications consultant, most notably developing a new television station in Gadsden, Alabama, and re-building a then dark WOXR.