Former KCEN newscaster Ham remembered

“Jim was an icon on television here in Temple,” said Tony Hennes, a former news director, who worked with Ham during the 1970s. “He was a mentor to so many reporters and anchor people. This guy had a dramatic impact.”

Max Tooker of Waco was another television newsman who remembers Ham well.

“It was quite a shock to all of us yesterday,” he said Sunday. “We had been talking with Tony about him coming to the KCEN-TV reunion, which is I believe next Saturday. … We had no clue he was even sick.”

They all worked together in the 1970s at KCEN-TV, he said.

“He was news director when I came on board,” Tooker said. “I was hired as the news anchor, so I worked under him. He made a huge contribution to the news business. He was what you would call old school. He believed in integrity, getting the facts first before reporting them. He instilled a lot of integrity, a lot of his ethic, into a whole bunch of young broadcast journalists.”

Andy Shaw of Dallas, another former KCEN-TV news director, said he grew up in Killeen in the 1950s and 1960s, watching Channel 6 news every evening.

“I remember various newscasters,” he said. “Jim Ham, he was the best. When I was seven or eight years old, I knew he was talking to me on the level. Watching him was how I developed my idea of how a television journalist was supposed to be like.”

At age 25, Shaw said, he was hired by the station and worked with Ham toward the end of his career.

“What an honor that was,” he said. “He was one of those guys that the world will really be diminished by his passing.”

The Rev. Roscoe Harrison of Temple, pastor of the Eighth Street Baptist Church, who had a long career in print and television journalism, said he worked with Ham for several years at KCEN-TV.

“We were pretty close,” he said. “I visited him a few months ago. He was one of the best newsmen in this area. He was legendary.”

Back in the 1960s, when “Bonanza” was popular on television, Dan Blocker came to Temple, Harrison said. When the plane landed at the airport, there was a big crowd, and Ham was there to cover the story. Harrison said someone yelled, “There’s Hoss Cartwright!” Then somebody else yelled, “There’s Jim Ham!”

Katharine Johanns of Georgetown said she was the first female anchor and reporter for KCEN-TV.

“He was my mentor,” she said of Ham. “I learned so much from that fellow. He was funny and so talented.”