Got the news last week that my good friend Neil Orne is stepping down as the morning anchor over at WKRN. It is a position that Neil has held since the Eisenhower administration, or it seems like it has been that long. Neil arrived at channel 2 a year before I started in 1996 and I left in 2011 and he and I have remained friends.
When I was done reading about Neil leaving, I was scrolling through Instagram and came across an interview with Jimmy Buffett and y’all know I am a huge Buffett fan. I turned on the sound and I heard an old familiar voice during the interview. It took me about five seconds before I realized who it was. The late great Dan Miller was doing it and he used to have a show in Nashville called ‘Miller & Company,” and it is still to this day the best talk show of all time. If you ever watched it and remember, you know exactly what I am talking about.
It then hit me. Guys like Dan Miller and Neil Orne are few and far between and as my grandpa would say, “They don’t make them like they used to.” With Neil retiring, a huge void will be left in the Nashville market. Dan Miller was larger than life. Everyone loved that man and when he passed in 2009, an entire city was devastated. He had that kind of impact that you will never see again in local news. Ever.
Neil comes close. I worked with him many times and he was beloved by everyone we came across. In fact, I have written about Neil giving me the best advice when I started working in TV about just keep showing up when this one person kept emailing the station about how awful I was on the air. I wouldn’t argue but Neil really helped me through that tough time. We had a blast when we worked together at channel 2 and it was a time when the station was so low in the ratings it was half embarrassing and half funny.
Point is, there will never be two men who had this kind of impact in local news. Consultants have ruined the flow of being hyper-local in the community and it won’t change. Besides Bob Mueller, you would be hard pressed to name any anchors on the news stations anymore. Neil and Dan had that amazing relatability that is more uncommon than common.
I knew Dan Miller a little bit because were both tapped to play Mother Ginger in The Nutcracker with the Nashville Ballet. He walked over and said to me during rehearsal, “You open the door, I will get the car and we can escape from here and never come back.” We both laughed and I said to myself, that is Dan Miller and he just spoke to me. What in the world is happening?
Crazy how all of that has changed when people such as Walter Cronkite, Dan, Neil and I will add Demetria, were almost part of our family in so many ways. They had such a lasting impact and still have that for so many of us.
Good luck in your next endeavor Neil, just turn the lights out when you leave. There isn’t anyone left.
