Chapter Five
Josh Deerly
Josh Deerly was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a little suburb town called Bethel Park. He was the oldest of two. He and his sister were prominent in sports in their little town.
Josh was a star basketball player for the Bethel Park Hawks. He led the team in scoring for all of his four years in high school. Deerly was a great student and was very interested in communications and journalism. Josh Deerly was the chief editor on the school newspaper and he wrote several articles that were acclaimed by large news companies.
Josh and his sister, Cleo, were and are very close. When he went to college in McKeesport at Penn State, Greater Allegheny campus, just down the road from their home, Cleo visited Josh at college many times.
The reporter took Communications at Greater Allegheny and he loved being close to home so he could visit family as many weekends as he desired. The Deerly family always did many things together throughout the year.
Later in his career in high school his parents and his high school coach worked really hard to get Josh a scholarship to a big basketball school. He finally accepted a full scholarship to Penn State but it wasn’t in basketball.
Not really knowing whether he wanted to make basketball a career, Josh Deerly was offered a full scholarship to Penn State in communication and journalism, because of his impressive work in high school, and he took it. Even though Deerly was not on basketball scholarship program, he played basketball as a walk-on at Greater Allegany and was impressive. He made the starting lineup for three years but didn’t have his heart in it.
The young Deerly made a name for himself at Allegany because of his investigative reporting. He loved working in television and eventually in his junior and senior years in college volunteered in the local stations around Pittsburgh. It wasn’t long before he took a part time wage for reporting in the area. Without a lot of fanfare he graduated with a degree in communication from Penn State University.
The summer after his graduation, Josh was approached by a friend who had contacts in television on the east coast. Deerly refused the opportunity in New York and decided to get some more experience in the Pittsburgh area with the local TV channels. It wasn’t long that he was asked to be a back up weather reporter on Channel Two. He learned a lot about the weather doing this job and he decided he liked it.
Josh was so successful in this part time gig that he was asked to fill in at times in a local TV station in Philadelphia. It wasn’t very long before Josh was offered the full time weekend weather reporter position at Channel five in Philly.
At first Deerly hesitated taking a full time position away from home. He was going out with a girl from his college, who lived nearby and his Dad was dealing with cancer. While he worked in the Pittsburg area he lived with his Mom and Dad in Bethel Park. He paid them a little rent to cover his expenses and he helped his mom and dad around the house.
When they found his dad had an illness, Josh took on the job of transporting Mr. Deerly to his clinic and hospital appointments. Josh loved doing things for his parents. He felt he owed them a life debt.
Finally Josh was convinced by his family to take the job in Philadelphia. His Dad was in remission and his Mom was taking care of all the clinic visits.
Cleo and his girl friend at Allegheny were the ones who hated to see him move away. His sister was a senior in high school and a star on the basketball team. She loved having him there for all her games. The reporter told his sister that he could still make most of the games.
When the young reporter moved east he didn’t see his girl friend much. She decided to stay and live at home with her parents after she graduated from Penn State and rarely spoke to Josh after that. Josh was too busy to be unhappy. He visited her a few times when he traveled home for family events but they are only good friends.
After moving to Philly, Josh did not make it back to Bethel Park as much as he would have liked. He only saw one of Cleo’s games her senior year and he missed the championship game when Bethel Park won their conference. Later Cleo took her team to the state championship which was held just outside of Philadelphia so Josh was able to attend.
He was with channel five in Philly for two years when the national networks in New York started inquiring about him and his work. At first he heard rumors that they were interested in him and his work but nothing was personally confirmed. Later in his second year at the local station, there was an official inquirer concerning his status of possibly being hired and transferred to New York.
Josh was somewhat of a home body. At first he did not want to go to the big city. It was not so much he was afraid to do national network stuff, but he was happy just doing local news and weather. Deerly thought there was more room to grow in the local scene. It was all about learning his trade and being the best at it.
Pedro Hemeze was introduced to Josh Deerly in his second year in Philly. Meteorologists from all over the country and the world were brought into Philadelphia for a conference on hurricanes. At that time, Deerly did not do too much work with hurricanes and he wanted to learn more so he attended this meeting. Doctor Konishi Suyaki was a speaker at the conference, but neither young man was able to meet him personally.
Josh was introduced to Pe by his boss at channel five. Mike Spitz thought Deerly could learn a lot from this young doctor who was only twenty-three and had studied meteorology since high school. They hit it off from the beginning and stayed good friends.
Pe and Josh communicated well with each other and related in many ways. They both were from small communities and had lots of talent in their related fields. Each had the hunger to learn as much as they could in their chosen field as well as learn other things that could help them do their jobs better. Over the short two years he had known Josh, Pe taught his friend a lot about Earth Science and in turn, Josh taught Pedro much about the TV business, weather reporting and investigation.
Hemeze lived in Miami and his friend traveled down to see him several times a year. Almost every time they got together, they worked on various projects and the other friend was very helpful in investigating and solving the issue they were working on.
Josh came across this hurricane story and presented it to Pe. Pe got extremely excited because Pe was working on a similar project. They both thought this hurricane was special so they went after it with all they had.
By this time in his short career, Josh learned that success in the news and weather industry was about a big breaking story. He and Pe were working on ‘THEIR’ story with Hurricane Blast.
Later in the day........................New York, NY
“OK, Pe, I’m working on it. They believe me even though nobody down there does. We can’t announce a warning from here but we can report what we think. That’s why they call it ‘forecasting.’ I’ll be back today….Reporting in one hour and leaving in two …..You still in LA?
…..I’m heading straight there…..Call Glenda….We have to convince the media down south tonight and tomorrow morning……. How many hours? Tell here to meet at…..You figure that out….See ya good buddy.”
A few minutes later Josh Deerly reported to the national audience from New York, “Breaking news from California….A Category four hurricane called Hurricane Blast is building strength four-hundred miles off the coast of Baja California and approximately six-hundred air miles from Los Angeles. We are not saying this hurricane will hit the metropolitan area of LA but currently it is affecting the weather in Mexico along the border between Mexico and California. More on this breaking story when I travel to Los Angeles later today. This is Josh Deerly reporting for Network News.”
Within minutes after he filed his report, Josh Deerly was on an airplane to LA to meet his two meteorologists’ friends and possibly report the story of his career.
Later in the day........................Los Angeles, CA
“This is Josh…Sarah, what are you doing calling me when I’m on a special project for management?”
“Josh, you know you aren’t the only one who watches weather reports and follows Network News. I hear you today and I’ve been assigned to fly out to meet you. I will help you convince those stations down there to broadcast your report to the whole southland.”
“You’d better hurry…Glenda and Pe and I are leaving LAX as we speak.”
“I’ll be there in six hours with bells on. Save me a chalupa and a taco. By the way, I’ll get my own car with my own expense account. See you in a few hours. Bye, Josh.”
