1. Albert Joseph "Al" Schottelkotte was an American news anchor and reporter for Cincinnati's WCPO-TV for 27 years, rising through the executive ranks at WCPO and later the Scripps Howard Foundation until his death in December 1996.
18 Facts About Al Schottelkotte
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Al Schottelkotte grew up in the western Cincinnati suburb of Cheviot.
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Al Schottelkotte ultimately attended three high schools, including St Xavier, but left without graduating to focus on journalism.
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Al Schottelkotte returned to the Enquirer and became a full-time columnist with his "Talk of the Town" column, which lasted several years.
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Ten years after WCPO-TV went on the air in 1949, general manager Mort Watters encouraged Al Schottelkotte to move to television, giving him the task of organizing the station's first news department, consisting of editor Marvin Arth, photographer Frank Jones, and Al Schottelkotte himself as news director and anchor for their 11 pm newscast.
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Al Schottelkotte was unseated as Cincinnati's news leader in 1982 by WKRC-TV's anchor, Nick Clooney, a long-time talk show favorite in Cincinnati and father of actor George Clooney.
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For many years Al Schottelkotte anchored the news six days a week, making him far and away the most visible news anchor in Cincinnati.
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Al Schottelkotte became so popular that he appeared in Gunsmoke as a bailiff in the episode "Old Man", which aired October 10,1964, and made a cameo radio broadcast as himself in the January 6,1966 "Not Guilty" episode of Gilligan's Island.
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In May 1976, Schottelkotte interviewed President Gerald R Ford at the White House.
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Al Schottelkotte punched the prowler with one hand while muting his microphone with the other so viewers could not hear it.
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The intruder fled and Al Schottelkotte, unperturbed, continued with the newscast.
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Al Schottelkotte ran special newscasts from WCPO's parking lot throughout the morning.
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In 1983 Al Schottelkotte made an unusual cameo in Dan Barr's music video, "Bus Full of Nuns" lip-synching the chorus while sitting at a nondescript anchor desk.
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In June 1982, after being unseated by WKRC as the number one newscast in Cincinnati, Al Schottelkotte announced that he would step down as anchor of the 11 pm news.
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Al Schottelkotte continued as anchor for the 6 pm news for four more years before anchoring his final newscast in August 1986.
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Al Schottelkotte married his first wife, Virginia Gleason, in July 1951 and had 12 children, six sons and six daughters.
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Al Schottelkotte died of cancer on December 25,1996, aged 69, at his Lawrenceburg, Indiana home.
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Al Schottelkotte was survived by his 12 children and two stepchildren, as well as his first and second wives, and several other relatives.