13/01/2025
Aaron passed away on December 29th, 2024. This is an update of a previous post that my friend Michael Petrone suggested a fitting repost ... R.I.P. Aaron.
Aaron “Skip” Brown was born on November 10th, 1948 in Hopkins, MN. At the age of 13, after his father took him to visit a friend who worked at the local newspaper, he decided that very day he would become a broadcast journalist. He walked around the house with a soda can as a microphone. Although he never came home with good grades in school, Aaron enrolled at the University of Minnesota as a political science major. He didn't graduate and instead enlisted with the U.S. Coast Guard. He'd already done radio talk shows as a teenager and returned to talk radio in Minneapolis after his stint with the Coast Guard. He took a flight on November 11th, 1969, the day after his 21st birthday, through Cleveland where his luggage got lost. When he arrived in Pittsburgh, he rented a car and on a cold snowing day, drove to Connellsville for an interview at a radio station with the call letters WCVI. While here, he met a couple who owned a furniture store, Jerold and Evelyn Mervis and they became friends. He ate lunch at Burns drug, learned to play guitar in his apartment, anything to occupy time and save enough money to continue his plan to be a national journalist. He’d move to Seattle, change his on-air name from Skip to his given name Aaron and switch from radio to television at a couple TV stations. Equipped with enormous self-confidence, he moved to Los Angeles. From there, He worked as a founding anchor of ABC's World News Now, Anchor for ABC's World News Tonight working alongside Peter Jennings and for Nightline. With his success there, he chose to make the leap to a relatively new network (CNN) which had started in 1980 and after twenty years had established its reputation. He is known for his CNN debut coverage earning him an Edward R. Murrow award, begun with the September 11th, 2001 Twin Towers terrorist attacks, his very first day on air. He continued as CNN's lead anchor during special events and breaking news until, in 2005, CNN chose to give his prime-time spot to the then up and coming Anderson Cooper. In 2006, Brown assumed the John J. Rhodes Chair in Public Policy and American Institutions at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University. In 2008, he returned to television as the host of PBS's Wide Angle. Brown was anchor of the series, and did reports from the field through the end of the series on September 2, 2009. He taught a course called "Turning Points in Television News History" at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at ASU from 2007 to 2014. He is the recipient of several awards including a DuPont, two New York Film Society World medals and a George Foster Peabody Award. He also won three Emmys, including one Emmy for his report ‘Streets of Iraq’ during the Iraq War. We here in Connellsville are proud to have shared in his journey towards his lifelong dream.