{"id":10675,"date":"2021-08-05T14:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T19:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=10675"},"modified":"2021-08-05T13:55:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-05T18:55:44","slug":"meet-john-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2021\/08\/05\/meet-john-bridges\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet John Bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Every kid gets asked, \u201cWhat do want to be when you grow up?\u201d Meet John Bridges. He knew it early, and he\u2019s living it now. (That\u2019s him on the left, with his cousin, playing with a microphone.) Childhood John loved music, but what interested him more than the music, were the voices of the DJ\u2019s, especially when they read the news. When he was 7, his mother took him shopping in downtown Lake Charles, at Muller\u2019s Department Store. He was right there, beside her, until he wasn\u2019t. Where\u2019s John!?! Like Elvis, John had left the building. His worried mother found him next door, at KPLC AM, entranced, staring through the window, at the radio announcers. Childhood John was a grownup just waiting to grow up. While other kids might read the sports and comics in the local paper, John was reading the front page, and the obituaries too.<\/p>\n

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While older neighborhood kids played football and baseball in a nearby empty lot, John set himself on the sideline, armed with a microphone and a cassette recorder, practicing play-by-play. He used his bedroom closet as a childhood sound booth. Shirts above him, pants beside him, John sat on the floor practicing his radio voice. The family story: his brother comes to his room, \u201cMom said supper\u2019s ready.\u201d John replies, \u201cTell Mom I\u2019m doing the news.\u201d (The news might be \u201cSusie\u2019s cat died, or Johnny\u2019s bike was stolen.\u201d) By age 10 he was riding his bike after school to KIKS 1310, helping with any chore, just to be allowed to watch a DJ in action. At age 15 John brought a public service announcement to the station, hoping the DJ would record it and play it. Instead, the DJ said, \u201cWould you like to record it?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cWould I!!!\u201d That was it. Within a week he was hired. \u201cMy first paycheck, they paid me in free albums.\u201d<\/p>\n

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His parents encouraged John to go to college, but John was already doing what he liked. He went for one semester. \u201cMy father never pressured me. \u2018As long as it\u2019s legal, respectable, and you\u2019re happy.\u2019\u201d John was even happier when he switched from being a DJ to being the news director. He enjoyed music, but loved news. In 1992, the TV people came calling. KPLC-TV, in the same building that he\u2019d disappeared to as a child, came to hire him away. Why would TV hire a radio guy? \u201cWe were beating them at spot news.\u201d Local media is competitive about who first reports local breaking news. Bridges kept a police scanner near him during his radio days, and his station was too often first at reporting a fire or traffic accident, so KPLC hired him away, made them their Assignments Editor, in 1992. In 1994, he transitioned to Weekend Anchor. In 1996 he began his long reign, as a Sunrise Anchor.<\/p>\n

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Part of Bridges\u2019 particular calling is telling the stories of people who deserve their stories told. It\u2019s the guy down the street, that often hasn\u2019t told his family, what he\u2019s about to tell John Bridges. In 2001, after the Twin Towers fell, John began the long running series, Hometown Heroes. Nearly fifty segments a year for twenty years, telling the stories of common people who were called into duty during uncommon circumstances. He\u2019s interviewed many celebrities through the years, but it is entirely telling, that when I ask Bridges about favorite interviews, he doesn\u2019t mention a famous name, he instead mentions a Mr. Broussard, who was part of the first wave of Higgin\u2019s boats, landing at Normandy.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe ramp opens, men are mowed down in front of him. My cameraman is tearing up, his daughter is off on the side, she\u2019s crying.\u201d Mr. Broussard was one of five men who survived. When the interview was over, Bridges reached out his hand, ET style, and asked Mr. Broussard if it was \u201cokay to touch him.\u201d He\u2019s talked to men who were this-close to General Patton, and Churchill, and even closer, to their dead buddy\u2026<\/p>\n

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Anyone who has ever done public speaking wonders how TV people do it, talking to a camera box. Bridges explains, \u201cWhen I\u2019m speaking on TV, I imagine I am speaking to one person. It\u2019s early in the morning. They\u2019re on their first cup of coffee. I greet them, \u2018Good morning,\u2019 and once that is done, the rest of my duty is to finish, by saying, \u2018Now here\u2019s the bad news.\u2019\u201d There\u2019s less pressure for that on early mornings. \u201cPeople wake up and they just want to be reassured that the world hasn\u2019t blown up while they were asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

He awakens long before the rooster crows.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cI have to be on air at 4:30AM.\u201d In all these years, with all the variables of weather, he\u2019s only been late once. Ice on the bridge. His local notoriety has a cost, loss of anonymity. He enters a Walmart through the garden section, not the front door. Being approached by strangers \u201cwhen you\u2019re buying deodorant or underwear\u201d is not something most of us know anything about. He laughs when he recalls a little ole lady coming up to him in a store, saying, \u201cI wake up with you every morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI thought Hurricane Rita was bad.\u201d And then came Hurricane Laura. Most of us evacuated far away.\u00a0 <\/span>John, spent the night in a jail cell. The dark of night hid the Jekyll and Hyde of nature, as gentle words \u2013 tree, wind, whistle \u2013 became the orchestra of danger. Next morning, there our John boy was, with just a cell phone and good intentions, standing in the rubble of our used-to-be\u2026 500 people watching became 5000, became 50,000, pushing up towards 200,000, neighbors looking to the hometown boy who never left us, to tell us our news, give us our facts, even if they\u2019re bad. It was full circle for John, whether he realized it or not.\u00a0 <\/span>The nine-year-old kid practicing delivering the news in his closet, becomes the man of the moment in his 60\u2019s.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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What people that know John say about him: Britney Glaser, a KPLC co-host for many years, \u201cI grew up watching John Bridges in the mornings and can vividly remember my 16-year-old voice shaking the first time I called \u201cMr. Bridges\u201d to request the opportunity to do a Teen Report segment on KPLC. He was, and still is, a true celebrity to me and that feeling never went away – even after sitting next to him for several years co-anchoring 7News Sunrise. On TV, John is everyone\u2019s best friend. The same rings true off screen, which is not always the case in the real world. John is fiercely loyal, compassionate, creative and always eager to tell the stories that bring out the best in people.\u201d Ron LeLeux, former local mayor, \u201cJohn is a legend, well respected. What you see, is what he is. I\u2019m honored to know him.\u201d Tony Mancuso, sheriff, \u201cI have worked with John for over 30 years and I have always admired his professionalism and dedication to his profession and his community. We\u2019ve been through good times and bad and I can say I have never seen him lose his composure or sense of humor in any situation. I am proud to call him my friend.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every kid gets asked, \u201cWhat do want to be when you grow up?\u201d Meet John Bridges. He knew it early, and he\u2019s living it now. (That\u2019s him on the left, with his cousin, playing with a microphone.) Childhood John loved music, but what interested him more than the music, were the voices of the DJ\u2019s, [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[2488,1212,894],"yoast_head":"\nMeet John Bridges - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2021\/08\/05\/meet-john-bridges\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet John Bridges - BestOfSwla\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Every kid gets asked, \u201cWhat do want to be when you grow up?\u201d Meet John Bridges. He knew it early, and he\u2019s living it now. 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