Tag: Channel 2

Buffalo in the ’90s: Channel 2 anchors Laurie Lisowski and Rich Kellman

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Through the 1980s and ’90s, there were dozens of featured news anchors on Channel 2, but two of the most popular remain Rich Kellman and Laurie Lisowski. They were paired on the anchor desk at 5 p.m. in 1990.

Buffalo News archives

Buffalo News archives

While Channel 2 was nearly wall-to-wall in the third-place news basement during Rich Kellman’s 32 years at the station, he was always a bright spot as ownership and other on air faces changed.

A reporter’s reporter with a slew of Emmy statues weighing down his mantle, Kellman’s strengths have always been in showing empathy without being sappy, being sensitive while still getting answers, and just being a human, friendly person in a medium where that can’t be taken for granted.

In her seven years at WGRZ, Lisowski was paired with no fewer than five co-anchors. She came to Channel 2 in 1989 after weekend duty at Channel 7, and within a year was replacing Alison Rosati as the station’s primary female anchor, on the desk for the 5 p.m. news with Kellman and the 11 p.m. news with Don Postles.

News critic Jeff Simon called her short-lived pairing with Nick Clooney as good as the best in Buffalo TV news history.  The father of George and brother of Rosemary, Clooney was only in Buffalo for four months in 1994 before he left for a job with cable TV’s American Movie Classics channel. Lisowski also worked alongside Ed Caldwell and Marty Aarons taking turns reading the WGRZ TelePrompTer.

Since leaving the anchor chair in 1996, Lisowski has appeared as a spokesperson for a handful of local businesses — but most visibly for Frey Electric, her husband’s family company.

Buffalo in the ’70s: Barry Lillis said it would be like this!

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

With a smile and personality more reminiscent of a Vaudeville comedian than a meteorologist, Barry Lillis’ ceaseless efforts to make Buffalo smile while offering the forecast through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s have made him one of Western New York’s most loved all-time television personalities.

Buffalo News archives

Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Lillis grabbed his first broadcasting gig at WGGO Radio in Salamanca in 1963. After spending a decade all around the TV dial and all around the country as a weather anchor and children’s show host, he came back to Buffalo and WGR-TV in 1976 as the weather anchor alongside newsman Rich Kellman and Ed Kilgore on sports.

Barry left Channel 2 in 1981 for Pittsburgh, but two years later, he was back and hosting the cult classic all-night movie show “Barry’s Cat’s Pajamas.”

Had he just spent parts of three decades as Buffalo’s favorite weather goofball, it likely would have been enough. But what really endeared us was his heart—tearfully on display in the raw, as he became synonymous with Channel 2’s Muscular Dystrophy and Kids Escaping Drugs telethons.

Buffalo News archives

Since leaving Channel 2 in 1996, Barry has run for Pomfret town justice, was ordained as an Orthodox Catholic priest, and has opened a wedding chapel helping hundreds through their wedding vows.

He’s also helped hundreds through addiction. Lillis marked Dec. 21, 1984, as the day he began his own recovery from alcoholism.

In 2014, Barry moved Western New York’s hearts again as he made public his battle with late-stage cancer.

From the BuffaloStories.com archives, this is a 1976 Barry Lillis weather forecast, taking you around foggy downtown Buffalo and out to the airport, offering up a healthy serving of Barry’s standard zaniness as well.  Rich Kellman is at the Channel 2 newsdesk.