People | Erv Melton
Erv Melton Always Stayed On Top Of The News
by Phil Hudgins, Clayton (Ga.) Tribune,
Erv Melton, his friends say, never stopped
being a newsman.
"He would call me every week with some
news," said Carol White, a longtime friend in Clayton. "Sometimes
he'd call and tell me a storm was on the way. I'd say,
'Erv, I didn't need to know that'."
Ervin T. Melton - newsman, photographer, movie producer and volunteer firefighter
- died Monday [August 23, 2004] following a brief stay
in a Gainesville hospital. He was 83.
A memorial service is scheduled at 11 a.m. Saturday at Clayton Baptist Church,
where Melton was a deacon and a member of the Friendship
Sunday School Class.
"I remember going over to Erv's house and he showed me all those pictures of
movie stars he has known," said the Rev. Mike Campbell,
pastor of Clayton Baptist, who will lead Saturday's service. "To
him, these were just ordinary people. He didn't put them
up on a platform. Some he liked and some he didn't."
But in Clayton, Campbell said, "Everybody liked Erv. He would speak to everybody.
There was no uppiness or egotism about him."
Son of E.T. and Mary Ethel (Thomas) Melton, Erv Melton was born Jan. 23, 1921,
and reared in Bennettsville, S.C., where he learned as
a teenager to operate a movie projector at the local theater.
He began his career as a reporter for the Marlboro Herald Advocate, a newspaper
in Bennettsville. He received training in news production
at Paramount Studios while in the U.S. Army and chronicled
a number of events during World War II. He filmed the building
of the road to Burma and helped produce war documentaries
narrated by the late President Ronald Reagan.
As a reporter and news director, he covered events during the terms of seven
presidents, including the Bay of Pigs invasion and desegregation
of southern schools. He covered every hurricane to hit
the east coast for 30 years.
After 20 years as news director for WBTV in Charlotte, N.C., Melton left television
news to form Carmel Productions. He produced a number of
his own movies and served as locations manager for such
TV productions as "Movin' On" and "Dan'l Boone."
Melton's friends and family recalled his dedication to the news business and
to volunteer firefighting - sometimes at the same time.
Tom Lawrence, whom Melton hired at WBTV and who now manages a production studio
near Raleigh, N.C., told of riding with Melton to New York
City in the 1960s to pick up film equipment.
"Erv was driving this big white and red Pontiac station wagon that had a red
light and siren and contained oxygen and cot and first-aid
stuff," Lawrence said. "Taxis and everything else were
getting out of our way." Melton used the vehicle in his
work and as a volunteer firefighter.
Natalie Howard, a Lake Burton resident, said Melton told her and Johnny, her
husband, about the time he was photographing a Ku Klux
Klan rally in South Carolina when suddenly he recognized
through his viewfinder the woman standing next to the burning
cross. It was his wife, Bonnie.
"Well, it was cold that night, and I was trying to get warm," Bonnie Melton
said.
The Meltons moved to Clayton in 1980 after his wife retired as a teacher. Erv
Melton semiretired in 1990 but continued to serve the community
through volunteering. His most recent service was on the
planning committee for the new Clayton Fire Department.
Besides his wife, other survivors are: his sister, Mary Melton Truesdell of
Clayton; a brother-in-law, Esly O. Greene of Clayton; a
sister-in-law and her husband, Violet and Kenneth Westbury
of St. Matthews, S.C.; two nephews, Ken Westbury of St.
Matthews, and David Westbury of Columbia, S.C.; and a niece,
Bonnie Westbury Stevens of Seneca, S.C.
Memorial contributions can be made to
the Clayton Fire Department, Rabun County EMS or Clayton
Baptist Church building fund.
Reprinted with permission from the Clayton
(Ga.) Tribune. Copyright the Clayton Tribune.
More From Richard Waters
Melton went to work at WBTV in 1956
and left sometime around the mid 70s. He succeeded the
late Nelson Benton, who left to join CBS News as a correspondent.
Benton succeeded Jack Knell, WBTV’s first news
director. He was a member of the WBTV Pioneer Club. He
was named Fireman of the Year while with the Woodlawn
Volunteer Fire Department of Charlotte. He also served
as its chief.
His broadcast career included: WDSC, Dillon
SC, (announcer/news reporter); WBSC, Bennettsville SC;
and WJMX, Florence, S.C. (announcer/reporter), also served
as a stringer for the Charlotte Observer and other newspapers.
He was listed in “Who’s Who” during the
60s.
 |
| News Director Erv Melton (right)
and WBT News Supervisor John Green, Jr. May 1966 |
The Meltons moved from Charlotte to Clayton,
GA, in 1979. Erv operated a film production and movie equipment
rental company and screening room for major film distributors
based in Charlotte in the late 70s. At one time, Erv told
a friend, he was given a special award by Frank Capra, Jr.,
son of a the legendary film director, during a ceremony
in Wilmington, N.C. Erv also produced an independent studio
film in the early 1990s “The Judas Project,” a
modern day version of the life of Christ.
Erv headed up both radio and TV news for
a while and directed TV news during some of its most dynamic
growth from a news department of about a dozen to more
than 40 when he left in the 70s. He assembled if not the
largest TV news staff in the Carolinas, then one of the
largest.
He hired the likes of C. J. Underwood (“Carolina
Camera”); John Jamison (Charlotte News and NCNB);
Joe Epley (Epley Associates-PR man); the late Ken Alvord
(NBC News); John Greene and Ben Waters (both of WRAL-TV,
Raleigh; Tom Lawrence (WRAL-TV),
who named his daughter actress Sharon Lawrence the godchild
of the Meltons; John Edgerton; Al Dale (ABC News); Bill
Ballard; Robert Hager (NBC News) and many, many others.
Erv, a close friend of Channel 3 President
Charles Crutchfield, raised the bar for TV news coverage
in the Carolinas and the Southeast, especially with his
coverage of the NC legislature in Raleigh, national political
conventions, live coverage of hurricanes that hit the Carolina
coast, race riots of the '60s, and live political events
in both states. Under his tenure, Doug Mayes was the 6
pm anchor; Bob Bean at 11 pm. He often produced feeds that
were used by CBS or on the Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
Melton was succeeded as news director by
Bill Ballard .
| Richard Waters, now retired
from broadcasting, lives in Hendersonville,
N. C. He was a WBT-WBTV newsman from 1965 to
1968. Much of this information in this article
was provided by Bonnie Melton, Erv's wife of
53 years. |
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