True story.
Longtime Jackson television newsmen Walt Grayson and Bert Case, who both worked for WLBT for years, often got mistaken for one another by members of the public.
“People called me Bert, and they called him Walt. That happened quite often,” Grayson said recently in his office at WJTV in Jackson.
Case died in 2016.
One time, Grayson said, a woman walked up to him and asked, “Are you the one who died?”
Really? Really.
True stories are Grayson’s stock and trade.
Grayson, 74, has been on the air — either radio or television — in Mississippi since 1966.
Following a 35-year stint at WLBT, Grayson works today at WJTV, Jackson’s CBS affiliate, as a weatherman, news anchor, and feature reporter. He’s been at WJTV for just under six years.
Grayson’s work as a feature reporter might be what he’s best known for. Besides doing feature work for WJTV, Grayson hosts the MPB show, “Mississippi Roads,” and has written a column for this magazine — Today in Mississippi — since the 1990s.
“Getting out and meeting people is wonderful. I get to explore the state, and I love it,” Grayson said.
Born and raised in Greenville, Grayson became obsessed with radios when he was a kid. When the family got their first television set, Grayson’s father gave him the family radio and record player.
“It was my first toy. I must have taken that thing apart and put it back to together so many times,” Grayson said.
Grayson said he fell in love with music, broadcasting, and the idea of being a radio disc jockey during that time.
He got his first broadcasting job in 1966 at a big band radio station in Greenville, WJPR. When he told the owners he could be at the station at 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings, he got the job.
He later moved on to rock and top 40 stations. At one point, Grayson thought he might become a preacher. He graduated from Mississippi College after getting a degree in Bible and a minor in history.
“Then I realized that wasn’t really for me. I really loved broadcasting,” he said.
Grayson got his first television job while working for a radio station in Jackson.
WJTV needed a part-time weatherman.
“My dad, being a pest control man, spent his time on the road and was fascinated with the weather. We watched the weather portions of all the TV newscasts. So, weather was something I had an interest in early on,” Grayson said.
Following his first stop at WJTV, he then became a full-time weatherman at WLBT where he did the 10 p.m. newscast.
In the afternoons, he went driving around the state looking for feature stories.
Although he’s not with WLBT anymore, driving around looking for stories is what he still does today.
“I love shooting my own stuff. I bought a TV camera and started shooting my own stories. It’s one of my favorite parts of the job,” Grayson said.
The veteran newsman said he grew up in a family of storytellers, so it’s in his blood.
“We would go to family reunions and listen to the older folks tell stories about each other and on each other. There’s a difference,” Grayson said.
For this year’s Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade and Festival in Jackson, organizers came up with the theme, “Telling the Mississippi Story.”
So, it only makes sense they asked Grayson to be this year’s grand marshal.
The parade is March 23 in downtown Jackson.
The event, which Grayson has covered many times as a journalist, is a Mississippi success story, he said.
Grayson said he has no intention of stopping his storytelling work anytime soon.
“As long as somebody plays the music, I will keep rocking and rolling,” Grayson said.
