A Blair County resident since 1985,  State Representative Jim Gregory has had a long career in the public eye.

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Growing up in Latrobe, PA, he wanted to be a sportscaster since he was in the ninth grade.  During his high school and college years at Ohio University, he worked to realize that goal and was given the opportunity to achieve it.

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In 1985, Gregory was hired by Barb Kooman, who was the News Director at WTAJ-TV 10.  He came to Altoona to work as a part-timer doing week-ends with Rodger Wyland.

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About a year after that, while working at WTAE in Pittsburgh at the same time, he was offered his first full-time job on air in Champaign, IL.  After working at a station there for a year, he received a call from the News Director at WTAJ in July 1986 to come back and replace Rodger Wyland as Sports Director.

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Gregory recalls,  "I was amazed that the job was open because I knew that Penn State was going to have a really good football team in '86 and Rodger was a big Penn State fan and an alumnus.  However, he wanted to go and so, I came back."

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His first year here, he got to cover Penn State's national championship, which he says was "amazing".

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Gregory adds that he had a lot of amazing opportunities at channel ten for twelve years until the opportunity presented itself to go work with The Altoona Curve, the new AA minor league affiliate of The Pittsburgh Pirates.  He accepted that position and was the first employee in 1998.  He worked there for a year without a stadium, selling tickets and advertising....

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**To read Jim Gregory's complete story, check out the upcoming book release They Came From Blair County Volume Two due out by the end of this year.

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**Information for this article was obtained through an in-person interview with Jim Gregory.

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**Photos were provided by Jim Gregory