Jim Sackett is a broadcasting icon for WPTV and a softball veteran. We caught up with him on the diamond one day this summer.
His rich baritone voice cut through the sounds of practice. His energy belied someone who retired from television news nearly 13 years ago after an outstanding career — but time marches on.
The memories and appreciation are undiminished.
Sackett recalled the fast food line he was standing in one day.
"These two ladies turned around and said, 'You are Jim Sackett,' and I said, 'Yeah,' and they said, 'I thought so. I recognized your voice.' My voice! Yes, and to this day, Michael, people still recognize me, first for my voice, then the way I look," Sackett said.
Sackett sent a tape of his work to WPTV in 1978. He and his wife were eager to leave winters in Bangor, Maine behind. The rest is history.
"It was a time in local broadcasting especially at Channel 5 when I would work nights," Sackett said. "I'd get off the air at 11:30 p.m. I'd rush home to go to sleep so that I could get up and come back to work. It was that much fun."
His stature grew as the West Palm Beach/Treasure Coast market grew with him. He became the most-watched anchorman in the market for decades, retiring on top in 2011.
Sackett was synonymous with television news here at a time when an anchor's voice had tremendous authority and reach.
I told him it was a mantle he always wore with humility.
"I appreciate the compliment. I didn't see it from that perspective," Sackett, always a gentleman, told me. "The only way I can answer that is I would go on the air every night, and I would present the facts."
He did not take sides, and he did not sit still at the anchor desk. He filled his career with far-flung datelines — Russia and Israel among them.
"We had an opportunity," Sackett recalled, "to go to Russia at the fall of communism and we stayed with a family in Kyiv."
And of course, there were always critical stories at home.
"The key moments for me were the hurricanes," Sackett recounted. "Channel 5 was the station that people watched to get the latest information on any storms, weather, especially the hurricanes."
There were also political hurricanes too, like the hanging chads that put Palm Beach County at the heart of the 2000 presidential election controversy.
"(The coverage) probably should have been 24-7 for us," Sackett said. "We got into the thick of it in our backyard."
For all his experience and travels, no dateline or story touched him like the one he told for three decades. His "Thursday's Child" stories focused on finding adoptive homes for children.
Sackett would travel anywhere to profile those children.
"We took two sibling groups to Finland through the generosity of the Finnish American Society in Lake Worth," he recalled. "We went there for a week, shot two segments of 'Thursday's Child' in the middle of winter in Finland."
In all, his career embraced the shared work and satisfaction of being part of the community, getting the news and getting it right. In the middle of it all, there was always the steadfastness of a career newsman.
I asked Jim whether he had missed all of that since he retired. Before he answered, he smiled, paused and clapped his hands.
"Yes, I do sometimes," Sackett said. "There were times you were ready to pull your hair out, but there are other times when everything falls into place. It is kind of an ironic thing to say, but when you do what we do, and a storm or hurricane comes by, everybody else runs away. What do we do? We run to the situation."
And no one did it better than Jim Sackett.
