Everybody knows the names of Kansas City’s top evening news anchors…
Names like the recently retired Larry Moore, John Holt and Phil Witt. Those guys have been doing it for years.
However one name jumps out from KC’s morning news pack – a dude who’s been on local airwaves for nearly two decades – Fox 4‘s Mark Alford.
Mark’s been here longer than any other morning anchor, 16 years and counting. Long enough that unofficially, he’s become The Kansas City Morning Man.
Mark and his wife Leslie Adkins, moved here from Texas in the late 1990s. Like Mark, she was a news anchor there but wanted to return to her hometown. So Mark took a 30% pay cut and went from the 8th largest market to the 33rd. He’d been in the big league’s in Dallas and Houston, was a sixth generation Texan and his father was a Texas Ranger.
Alford’s career had started in Waco where he’d interviewed Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and comedy ventriloquist Jeff Dunham had worked as his camera man.
An early run in here with Royals legend George Brett, turned out to be a career builder Alford didn’t expect.
Mark’s wife had asked him to shake Brett’s hand and tell him she was a huge fan. So on opening day 1998 when Alford saw Brett with fellow newsman Frank Bohl, he put out his hand to shake Brett’s and Brett mumbled, “So what” and declined to shake.
From that day forward – wherever Alford was out and about in the city – he not only offered to shake hands with every single Fox 4 fan he met, he would ask about their family and thank them for watching.
“It’s served me well,” Alford says. “Being kind and giving people a moment of my time has added thousands of fans and friends and we have the number one morning news show again this year. George and I have since spoken and are on good terms, but I learned a valuable lesson that day – that every single person matters.”
Mark gets up at 3 AM every weekday to be at work for Fox 4’s 4:30 to 9:00 AM shows. He and co star, Loren Halfax have become a staple on morning television in Kansas City
“I feel it’s my job not to just bring people the news but to entertain them,” Alford says. “I was a big Don Rickles fan and I loved Johnny Carson, so I do a bit of both. I love my work and hope to to keep doing this for years to come.
Seventeen percent of Kansas City watches Fox 4 news at 5 AM every day, Alford says.
His most memorable interview?
“Walter Cronkite,” he says. “I told him how honored I felt getting to interview him and he looked at me and said, ‘I hope I don’t disappoint you.’ ”
Stanford’s has had comics on Mark and Loren’s show for years, so I know that getting 3 AM and having to go to bed at eight o’clock every night isn’t very glamorous – it’s hard work.
So thanks to Mark for your long years of service to Kansas City.
Sounds like mr. brett. Him and glaze have the same problem…
The young royals players dislike him…he’s arrogant…and most people
wish that ump would have hit him with that pine tar bat.
He’s a big fish in a little SMALL TINY pond…thinks he’s way more important than
he really is….is disliked in kc ….he’s a conman selling crap bracelets…
but most importantly he’s got a big head and outside kc 99.9%of
the people wouldn’t give a fuk who he was andwouldn’t care.
hIS DAYS ARE BEHIND HIM…..
Alford is cool. Does real estate and other jobs while being a newscaster.
I am disappointed in your comment Harley. I was hoping for the borrowed glory bullsh*t rendition of your family’s association with Brett and his charitable contributions to the city and nation. Brett is famous for his work with the ALS foundation (His initial entrance into this charity was in step with the efforts of Keith Worthington, Woolf Brothers Exec who succumbed to the disease.) . We are waiting with bated breath to hear of your efforts as the catalyst of still another charity.
Brett is singular Kansas City tour de force now, as he has been for decades. His athletic accomplishments are legend and deservedly so. Time and time again, in the clutch, with everything on the line, he delivered the goods, the joy, the wins for a city whose sports fans have found themselves on the downside of fortune for the most part, since his departure from the field.
He is flinty, mercurial, forthright and in no way suffers fools and liars like you.
No wonder I love the guy.
I’ve talked to him morning after mornjng at Hi Hat during coffee. Super nice guy.
Harlet STFU till you post ONE news story that collaborates a rape with an 82 trial you said you served on involving a Stephens student, cause it didn’t happen
So STFU until you produce a link to your USA TODAY front page story.
If you’re a good little bi$ch you won’t comment again because both are lies and you refuse to prove otherwise.
Youve been caught more times than anyone I know, starting with faking he was an attorney two years ago.
Back up your stories little man. I own you, I have the facts and only THREE of your lies are listed above.
Prove me wrong, make me the fool. Prove the above two, your rape trial jury duty, as you described earlier and your front page USA TODAY story you wrote and I’ll NEVER WRITE OR COMMENT HERE on KCC AGAIN.
If you FAIL, you do the same.
Take it or leave it, no excuses, no nothing. There’s your deal you worthless lying sack of monkey dung.
NO rabbit trails, no counter claims, make no other smoke screen diversions to move the needle off the PATHOLOGICAL LIAR meter.
Prove your claims above and I go away.
Fail to, you go away. No smart ass comments, just back up your claims with facts and data YOU DEMAND from every one else. Period. Those are YOUR RULES for others, it’s your turn.
Prove me wrong, I leave.
Fail to, you leave, a disgraced, sociopathic liar….or the Harley personal facts start leaking out. Don’t test me.
get your 10K ready mr. big shot.
i’ll gladly take your money.
and stop fantaszing about me at night like hearne
talked about and wrote about.
You’re doing what you do best, avoiding the issue and defaulting to $10large. Do what I said, post the three links and I leave here forever. Don’t, and you’re the lying sack of dung everyone knows you are. Put up or shut up.
Its gotta be really easy. If you wrote a front page story, you are so ego infested you have the link. Put it up.
If you were on a rape jury in 82, you HAVE the news story. Put it up.
You do it, I leave. Forever.
If you CANT…. we all know why.
plus I own you…at 1:42 am you’re still thinking /fantasizing
about Harley.
wow…I’m sure i’ll get some really funny emails about this.
wish hearne would let me post the emails I’ve gotten.
We’re roflao…..for you older guys that means
we’re rolling on the floor laughing our ass off!!!!!
Harley wins again!
Easy boyz, keep it in your pants or…
If you must, there’s always the Beaumont Club and a photo of one of you holding today’s newspaper.
craig, I know what you meant when you said, “I know that getting (up at) 3 AM and having to go to bed at eight o’clock every night isn’t very glamorous – it’s hard work.”
but that’s not hard work. I do that every weekday too. what’s hard is the time spent doing striving to a good job between those hours.
craig, I know what you meant when you said, “I know that getting (up at) 3 AM and having to go to bed at eight o’clock every night isn’t very glamorous – it’s hard work.”
but that’s not hard work. I do that every weekday too. what’s hard is the time spent striving to a good job between those hours.
You can say that again!
Good one, Stuttering Mike
I like how this who article is about Alford, but Craig still finds a way to make it about himself right at the very end. That’s how I know he actually wrote the story.
*whole article
Well, you can really tell it’s by CG because not even Hearne can catch all the grammatical mistakes.
Hey I tried, Hot Carl…
You should have seen the raw copy. I’ll give it another pass here in a minute.
Any relation to Sherlock Holmes, John?
Craig G…..very cool man…and no a$$ kissin’….job well done and to any hater’s….so be it….I can live with that!!!!…DW
No one watches local news anymore. All you get is a count of the murders overnight and the house fires in KCK.
Wrong Jack its the ‘one thing’ KC does watch and more and more in the morning…maybe the ‘yellow tape’ is part of why they watch.
I have no idea about the ratings for local TV. However, it would make sense that a town that slows down to see a tire on the side of the Interstate would watch the morning shows that promote death.
Ok, that is pretty funny.
🙂
I agree that those morning shows do draw eyeballs…
I think people put them on kind of as mindless background, maybe to get a little traffic, learn what’s going on in town that day or for the coming weekend.
It’s really a different beast than the, if it bleeds it leads night time newscasts. To some extent, anyway
Some of these comments are the best examples of ‘trolling’ … some like Don’s are honest and kind. Here I write a piece about a guy who has busted his butt for Fox 4, his fans, and KC and you get people who just want to find a reason to hate or bitch…”Its all about Craig” WTF…I mention he has interviewed our comics…why…to show I have a relationship with Mark, know him and have seen his work…credibility to my opinion thats all. To say I made it about me is really a jerk off comment. But people who do that just want to put down the writer or anything he says and does. What Greg Hall wrote about. Its the nature of the beast today. Scandal over substance. Hate over ‘nice guy’…so we feed into the beast.
I like Mark, he seems to be a decent guy. From what I know of him a nice person. He does a great job. That’s all. Simple as that. Save your hate guys for the way the Chiefs will finish.
first off didn’t realize glaze wrote it…
alford is a very cool guy. Met him about a month ago.
Hardest working guy in tv.
Most of the tv people in kc are actually great people.
John holt/larry moore/frank boal/jack harry/len dawson/
and the rest of the news people in kc are always very friendly.
alford is also a funny guy! And I see many of the royals players
and chiefs players at the restaurants in leawood and they too
are always friendly. I’ve met a lot of them at dean and delucas.
I used to see brett …thought he was cool…no way.
He thinks he’s cool but as you read more stories about this
guy you realize what a jerk he is. Throws balls at kids heads?
I’ve heard worse stories!!!!! Saw him at kci once push a kid to the
floor so he could get his bags at baggage claim.
Even the young royals won’t listen to him. When he went to help
them with their hitting…none listened to him. They went with the
batting coach instead. And what about those bracelets they sold?????????
I’ll take it a step further on Craig making the story about him by mentioning he sometimes has his comics on the show…
Journalistically speaking, that’s called full disclosure. To leave that out would have been unprofessional.
Not that Craig is carving out a career in journalism here, but it needed to be disclosed.
Come on, Jesus…
Glazer has one blurb at the end, that ties in personally with the story and actually adds anecdotal information that improves the narrative.
What the fu*k fellas, I get the Glazer hate for the obvious reasons, but this is a nice local upbeat story about a nice local successful guy that has no down side. The Pavlovian “Hate Glazer” comments are ok, he is a big boy, but really? This article pizzes you off?
🙂
Agreed…
CG is the king of the douche nozzles…but this was a good story. Well done Craig
Wow!
I’m still rubbing my eyes after Chuck and Jess’s attaboys to Craig.
Even though it was kind of a “backhanded” compliment, Jess -Craig will take it! Douche nozzle, huh?
+.5
This makes me wonder how much security would be required if Alford and Glazer accidentally walked into a Quik Trip simultaneously.
lol… good one.
I can answer that one, KCMonarch…
It would be like a Beatles reunion, only way huger…obviously, right?
Thought this was a very nice article on a decent guy. I watch Mark Alford each morning. I thought George Brett came off as an Ass. But Going back to when I worked out at the ball park In ’74 it described Mr. Brett to a T I once saw him throw a ball at a kids head in the stands before a game because he kept asking for a ball. Mr. Brett threw the ball at the kids head and told him to get the FUK away from him. And I can tell you that ball was moving. But let someone with money or famous or let the cameras come on and Mr. Brett was Mr. Cool and Kind. I have met Mr. Alford and he was kind to everyone and shook hands with all that held their hands out. I do like Mr. Alford.
Just my take on the article
That is disappointing to hear.
My experience with him at the old Dos Hombres in Brookside was far different. He said hello to my little boy (He was about 9 back then.) as he sat across from us having dinner. My kid was thrilled.
I saw Brett tell 3 kids to F.O. when they asked for an autograph after a home game one night back in the 80’s.
We even won that night!
Mark is as cool as they come. What you see, is what you get.
Sheesh…
🙁
I know how you feel, Chuck.
Bummed me out to see that.
is that all you have to such dummy? sheesh?
Itold you the dude was a phony…and you
came back with some statements.
Then at least 2 others have the same sotires
of what a jerk off the guy is.
And you say sheesh.
go back to filling holes.
again…Harley knows the facts and you
should never doubt Harley.
NOW that was much better. Thank you guys. As for George. I have known him since he came here. He used to hang out at Stanfords in Westport back in the 70’s as a young star. The man even told S.I. we were one of his favorite places to go in KC, they printed that. Nice. He also helped host our first BUST OUT IN BLUE with me and Nigro in early 90’s. George can be great or not so much. Remember the guy gets hounded daily. He has just hasn’t ever gotten over the ‘money’ difference of when he played and today’s guys. It hurt him emotionally all these years I think. So there’s a ton there. Like Mark and his wife said, the man did as much to put KC on the map as anyone over the years. He does love Kansas City.
“Frank BOHL”? Are you effing kidding me? It’s spelled “B-0-a-l”
Craig was obviously thinking of former KU athletics director Al BOHL
“He has just gotten over the ‘money’ difference of when he played and today’s guys. It hurt him emotionally all these years I think.”
the story you write gets some compliments and then you write this?
So you’re saying its okay for brett to try and hurt young kids because he only
made a million a year when he was playing? He’s been hurting emotionally
since the 80’s because he doesn’t make the money todays players make?
please explain. That’s his reason.
Hey Hearne the auto body could spell Frank Boal and we couldn’t. We are dumb asses, he’s right.
Quite possibly the most true statement you have ever posted.
Now, now, Dale…
I think you know Craig was being facetious…at least I think he was.
You were being facetious weren’t you, Craig?????
Thanks, Craig…
For throwing me under the bus for not catching ALL of your mistakes.
Take it like a man!
Wow. Down boys. I would write more but I have a life to live.