NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Of course, you go to the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame ceremony, you're going to hear a lot of voices you know. Here's one.
"There are a lot of years represented here today," said retired longtime NewsChannel 5 sportscaster Hope Hines. "There's just a lot of people who have a lot of talent."
Hines told me he never did a lot of radio, but something brought him to the ceremony. It's a story that started 40 years ago.
It was 1986. Nashville was a growing city and Hines needed to hire a weekend sports reporter.
"We had hundreds of tapes come in," he remembered. "I sat for two weeks, every spare moment I had, looking at video tapes."
Then, 30 seconds into a tape from a reporter in Evansville, Indiana, Hines knew the search was over.
"It was Mark Howard," Hines said. "I said right there, he's going to be our guy."
Here was the first thing.
"He had a mind that just soaked up sports," Hines nodded. "He could remember details like nobody I've ever seen. He was never wrong either!"
Then there was this; Howard was just funny.
Howard followed the action everywhere. He was there for Pat Summitt's national titles, for multiple World Series, the Music City Miracle. It all just told Hines, in those stacks of hundreds of tapes, he'd picked the right guy.
"Mark and I were family," Hines said. "Even though I was his boss and all of that, I loved the man."
After 20 years working together, Howard went on to co-host The Wake-Up Zone on 104-5, but he'd still come by to visit Hines.
"You're like my dad, and I love you like a father," Howard told Hines in an archive appearance on SportsLine.
"He'd often call me at different hours of the night and say, 'hey Hope. I'd just like to talk,'" Hines remembered.
In 2022, Mark Howard died. He was 65.
"It was a tough blow," Hines said.
On Saturday night came an induction ceremony for the Tennessee Radio Hall of Fame. Mark Howard's part of the class of 2026.
"So back in the back is Mark's brother Bobby who has come from New York," said radio personality and friend of Howard's, George Plaster.
Radio personality Kevin Ingram helped with the induction.
"Worked with Mark on the show 16 years on The Zone," Ingram said.
"Mark Howard is #1 in my heart," Hines said to the crowd. "I loved Mark Howard. I miss him every day. He was just one of my favorite people. I'm just proud he's going in tonight. I can't think of anybody else that deserves it more than Mark Howard does."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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