NEWS STORY CHANGED ONE RADIO REPORTER
The Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati, OH - May 14, 1990

           The radio station had told him to paint a picture in words, to describe the horror, confusion, and pain of that May night near Carrollton, Ky., when 24 children and three adults died in a fiery bus crash.

           It was 1988, the day after the May 14 crash. Gregg Anderson, a reporter for WKRC Radio, shot his questions along with the reporting throng grilling Don Tennison - the minister whose church in Radcliff had sponsored the teen trip to Kings Island that turned to tragedy. The forum was question-answer:

           How many were on the bus?

           Where were they from?

           How old was the bus?

           How much did it cost? Was it safe?

           Among the sounds of cool professionalism, Anderson's voice broke in with sudden tenderness: How can you minister to people like this? What can you tell them that's going to help?"

           Tennison's voice shook as he answered: "You have to love them and encourage them, and let them know that we're all hurting. And even God's hurting."

           Anderson had started hurting long before he went to Carrollton to cover that bus crash. Two years before, he had been fired as a news director for Storer cable. He was being sued by a fellow news professional. He had broken up with his longtime girlfriend. He had financial problems. By the time he got to Carrollton, Anderson was actively looking to God for answers.

           Maybe that's why fellow news people weren't surprised when somewhere between his interviews with medical examiners and ministers in Carrollton Gregg Anderson decided to put down his tape recorder and pick up a Bible.

           The 36 year old former news reporter from Highland Heights completed his first crusade this month an eight-day revival in Miller, Mo.

           On June 10, Anderson will be ordained as an evangelist of the Evangelical Church Alliance, at 2:30 p.m. at the Christian Tabernacle in Newport.

           His conversion wasn't overnight. However, he remembers the moment when his direction changed.

           He had completed most of his crash interviews, had the color, and details his editor wanted. One official had told him the fire in the bus was like a napalm bomb. The heat was so intense, some of the kids melted into the seats.

           As he was waiting for his cue to broadcast, a woman came into the hotel lobby to use the phone.

           "She was distraught, broken hearted," Anderson said. "I was moved with compassion. I remember I said, 'God, what can I do?'"

           He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.

           "She gained her composure. I heard her tell the lady she was talking to, 'There's a reporter next to me. And he's a Christian.' She said she could feel God's love coming through my hand."

           Anderson gave his news report on cue. He used the graphic description. He finished the job. However, having the right words and the breaking story didn't seem important anymore.

           "When I got back, some doors started closing for me," Anderson said.

           He covered a few small stories. He had a hard time finding news jobs.

           He said he recognizes it now as God's way of pushing him in a new direction.

           He became a sales representative for the Wildwood Inn in Florence and talked with local ministers about his growing need to share what he saw as God's comfort. Last August he took graduate courses in pastoral counseling at the Assemblies of God Thelogical Seminary in Springfield, Mo.

           Rev. Harold Brown of the Highland Chapel Free Methodist Church in Miller called Anderson's recent revival exciting and sincere.

           "He's a Christian in process," Rev. Brown said. "In the last four months, he's grown more than any Christian I've known. He has victories in some real major areas in his life."

           His personal troubles have helped him understand others, Rev. Brown said. Anderson calls himself a "reporter of the Good News of Jesus Christ."

           He moved home with his parents in Highland Heights and operates his new 70x7 Evangelistic Ministry there.

           "That's part of the sacrifice, moving back home, living a lower life style, not hob-nobbing with the governors and athletes," Anderson said.

           "It used to be when I was on the street people would recognize me, say 'Hey, there's Gregg.'

           "The glory goes to God now not because I broke a good story for Storer or WKRC, but because God loves me.

           "This is the best time of my life," he said. "It's like having an exclusive."

           Anderson saved the tape of the Carrollton interviews. Among them he asks the assistant pastor of the Assembly of God Church in Carrollton how he could say God will bring something good out of such a terrible event.

           "God will take a tragedy," Rev. Charles Harmon told him in that interview two years ago. "Souls could be saved out of that tragedy. Lives could be changed."

May God's BEST be yours...Gregg