Byron Crawford
KY, US
Byron Crawford is a storyteller from both the back roads & the side roads.
Storyteller Humorist TV & Radio Broadcaster Newspaper Columnist Professional Speaker Byron Crawford has experienced a varied career in broadcasting, television and newspapers. His colorful subjects have ranged from Richard Nixon to Muhammad Ali, from the Lone Ranger to John Wayne. He has ridden crop dusters, hunter rattlesnakes, spent the night in haunted houses and chased UFOs. Yet, he says his most hair-raising assignment was an automobile ride with a 103-year-old driver! Born on December 9, 1945, the only child of a farm family, Byron Crawford's youth was spent on Hanging Fork Creek surrounded by kinfolk and friends who loved the art of storytelling. The art rubbed off. By age four, Byron was telling outlandish tales himself. As a teenager, he landed his first job at a 500-watt "daytime" radio station in Stanford, KY. He swept the floors, emptied the trash and occasionally got to read the news on the air. That lead him to Danville, KY, a larger station where he was a DJ at night and drove a milk truck during the day. Byron's radio career led him to WHAS, a 50,000-watt station, in Louisville, KY and a year later he joined WHAS Television as host of a syndicated human interest feature series, Side Roads. In 1979, Byron Crawford joined Kentucky's largest newspaper, The Courier-Journal. As "Kentucky Columnist," his stories appear three times weekly and are dedicated to the people, humor, history and folklore of his native state. A picture of Byron wearing a hunting cap has become his trademark. Byron Crawford's universal humor has resulted in speaking invitations from groups of every description across the United States. His goal is "to make people forget about the tensions of everyday work and the things that pull and tug at them." His speeches contain a dash of backroad common sense. The result is a program that entertains and inspires. "Byron Crawford is the best storyteller in Kentucky -- if your count only the ones who tell the truth. He is the genuine article, having developed his ear for good stories as a boy by attending to the yarn-spinners who congregated at the feed mills and stockyards in his native Lincoln County. The young Crawford then practiced on his childhood buddies there on the banks of Hanging Fork Creek. Ever since, he has practiced on a wider audience." -- Charles Kuralt CBS News Correspondent
Storyteller Humorist TV & Radio Broadcaster Newspaper Columnist Professional Speaker Byron Crawford has experienced a varied career in broadcasting, television and newspapers. His colorful subjects have ranged from Richard Nixon to Muhammad Ali, from the Lone Ranger to John Wayne. He has ridden crop dusters, hunter rattlesnakes, spent the night in haunted houses and chased UFOs. Yet, he says his most hair-raising assignment was an automobile ride with a 103-year-old driver! Born on December 9, 1945, the only child of a farm family, Byron Crawford's youth was spent on Hanging Fork Creek surrounded by kinfolk and friends who loved the art of storytelling. The art rubbed off. By age four, Byron was telling outlandish tales himself. As a teenager, he landed his first job at a 500-watt "daytime" radio station in Stanford, KY. He swept the floors, emptied the trash and occasionally got to read the news on the air. That lead him to Danville, KY, a larger station where he was a DJ at night and drove a milk truck during the day. Byron's radio career led him to WHAS, a 50,000-watt station, in Louisville, KY and a year later he joined WHAS Television as host of a syndicated human interest feature series, Side Roads. In 1979, Byron Crawford joined Kentucky's largest newspaper, The Courier-Journal. As "Kentucky Columnist," his stories appear three times weekly and are dedicated to the people, humor, history and folklore of his native state. A picture of Byron wearing a hunting cap has become his trademark. Byron Crawford's universal humor has resulted in speaking invitations from groups of every description across the United States. His goal is "to make people forget about the tensions of everyday work and the things that pull and tug at them." His speeches contain a dash of backroad common sense. The result is a program that entertains and inspires. "Byron Crawford is the best storyteller in Kentucky -- if your count only the ones who tell the truth. He is the genuine article, having developed his ear for good stories as a boy by attending to the yarn-spinners who congregated at the feed mills and stockyards in his native Lincoln County. The young Crawford then practiced on his childhood buddies there on the banks of Hanging Fork Creek. Ever since, he has practiced on a wider audience." -- Charles Kuralt CBS News Correspondent
2010