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From: TidewaterForever
Date: 12 May 2007
Time: 16:34:42 -0500
Remote Name: 12.5.56.200
Yes, Ira Hull did live in the Grandview area of Hampton (I think it was something like 110 Lighthouse Drive) with Gene Loving and Keith James. Ira was a fascinating guy. He had three different stints at WGH. Ira succeeded Frank Malone as the morning newscaster in July 1963 and was there for a year. He left around Labor Day 1964 and moved to Charlottesville where he worked for the University of Virginia's Radio and TV Recording Center. He was replaced by William and Mary alumnus Gene Galusha. When Galusha decided to become a teacher, Ira came back to Hampton from Charlottesville. He stayed the second time from September 1965-August 1966, when Gene Galusha replaced him again. In 1966, Ira then went back up I-64 to the Charlottesville area where he remained until 1973. In November 1973, Ira came back to the Peninsula with his second wife Kitty who was a cousin of the late Congressman Tommy Downing. He stayed at WGH that last time until 1979. One of Ira's most traumatic experiences of the 1973-'79 period was Monday, September 18, 1978. He was concerned when Dick Kidney (who worked a 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift weekday shift) didn't show up. Ira had a key to Richard George Kidney's apartment at the Newport Towers in Newport News. He discovered Dick had died at some point that weekend of an embolism. Dick Kidney worked at WGH for 20 years beginning in 1958 and died in September 1978. Kidney was a native of New York City and a graduate of NYU. He came to the Peninsula in 1953 to work with WVEC-TV (now Channel 13), and came over to WGH in March 1958 (the same week as Roger Clark). Ira moved back to Charlottesville again in 1979 and retired there until his second wife Kitty died. He then moved to Florida which is where he died at some point in the late 1990's.