38002.com
theview
theview
Page 6
December 2013
Meet Your Neighbor:
Dave Brown, LakeLAND’s Favorite Meteorologist
Story and Photos by Terry Louderback
It doesn’t take long to
notice that Dave Brown
isn’t like most other
people in one important
way. And before I left the
Action 5 studio, I just had
to ask him about it. So
why does he pronounce it
“Lake LAND”?
The answer lies way
back
before
the
meteorologist/wrestling
announcer/radio
DJ
moved to Lakeland 26
years ago. For several
years, Brown had read
radio commercials for
Louis Garner, the owner
of
the
Lakeland
amusement
park.
According to Brown,
Garner wanted his park to
be pronounced just like
Disneyland
or
Graceland—neither
of
which
sounded
like
“lund.” So, every script
Brown received had
written across the top
“Lake LAND,” and he’s
stuck with it ever since.
Brown was drawn to
Lakeland in the 1980s by
the privacy, the rolling
hills that remind him of
his childhood visits to his
grandmother’s
east
NOW: At the weather computer in the WMC-TV studio.
Shelby County home, and
the lake. He confesses
that he isn’t much of a
fisherman, but loves
going out on his boat and
describes himself as the
“self-appointed
garbageman of Garner
Lake.”
With over 50 years in
broadcasting, Brown isn’t
ready to retire just yet.
“It’s all I’ve ever done or
had a desire to do,” he
explains. As a 15 year old
high school sophomore,
Brown started on the air
as rock and roll DJ for
two stations.
After
enrolling at Memphis
State, he continued on air
at WHBQ, a top radio in
the country and the first
station to play Elvis
Presley’s music. (Side
note: Dave Brown admits
to having a “voluminous
knowledge of 50s-80s
rock and roll.”)
When the opportunity
came to co-host a local
wrestling show with
Lance Russell on WHBQTV, Brown says he
decided to test the waters
of television. He explains
that Memphis’s Saturday by the weather, even as a
In
1997,
Dave
morning wrestling show kid.
So he took the Brown’s life was touched
was primarily an extended position.
When the by tragedy—his daughter,
commercial
for
the wrestling program moved granddaughter and unborn
Monday night event at the to WMC-TV in 1977, he grandson were killed by a
Mid-South
Coliseum. became
the
chief drunk driver. Since then,
But it had a huge meteorologist for that Brown has been active in
audience, playing in six station and has been there speaking against drunk
different regional markets ever since.
driving. “Drunk driving
and at one point over 70
“I’ve been fortunate is one of the most
markets nationwide.
to spend my entire career preventable
violent
Although
Brown in Memphis. Thirty-five crimes—you are getting
confesses that he didn’t years ago, I had offers into a weapon,” Brown
know a lot about elsewhere, but I decided states.
“You have to
wrestling when he started to stay here. It may have know that you cannot
in 1967, 35 years later, he been less money, but it’s a drink and get behind the
“couldn’t wait to see what good quality of life and wheel of a car. Alcohol
would happen next” as the I’ve always been treated impairs your ability to
make decisions—if you
storylines played out.
well.”
are already at the
As
with
Christmas party, it’s
wrestling,
too late. You planned
Brown’s move
to attend the party;
into
plan how to get
meteorology
home.” If you don’t,
also came from
and are arrested for
his taking a
drunk driving, Brown
chance. When
adds that tougher laws
the
television
and
enforcement
station started a
mean that you “could
noon newscast,
spend time in a place
he had the
that [you] don’t want
opportunity to
to be.”
become
the
THEN: A magnetic