Charles Kuralt is best known for his critically acclaimed series "On the Road," television "essays" on the United States, and for his 15-year tenure as host of the equally acclaimed CBS Sunday Morning series. Through a CBS network career spanning four decades, this award-winning journalist and author brought the life and vitality of back-roads America to an eager audience while providing a television home for the arts, the environment, and the offbeat.

     Kuralt began his career as a reporter-columnist in 1955 for the Charlotte News. His penchant for unusual human interest stories found a home in the News' daily "People" column, which in turn earned him the 1956 Ernie Pyle Memorial Award. A year later he was recruited by CBS. His first network job was to rewrite wires and cables from overseas correspondents for radio newscasts, but he quickly advanced to the position of writer for CBS Evening News. In 1958 he moved to the CBS television news assignment desk, where he also covered fast-breaking stories. A year later, he became a full-fledged correspondent-the youngest person ever to win that position. In 1960 his star continued to rise, as he was chosen over Walter Cronkite to host a new CBS public affairs series, Eyewitness to History. However, within four months he was replaced by Cronkite and was moved back to general assignment reporting. He was named chief of CBS's newly established Latin American bureau during the Kennedy administration, then chief West Coast correspondent in 1963. He also reported from various global hot spots in Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia, including four tours of duty in Vietnam.

Contributing special reports to the documentary se­ries CBS Reports and anchoring several public affairs specials in addition to his regular reporting duties, Ku­ralt began to tire of the grind and rivalry inherent in daily reporting. To remedy this, he devised his plan for "On the Road." After an initial negative reaction, he managed to win minimal support from network executives who granted him a three-month trial.

     Kuralt's three-month trial began in October 196,, and turned into a 25-year odyssey. With camerama, Izzy Bleckman and soundman Larry Gianneschi, he logged more than 1 million miles in six motorhomes while producing approximately 500 "On the Road'' segments. Staying off the interstates and with no set itinerary, he drew upon viewer letters, a state-by-state clipping file, and occasional references from public relations firms and local chambers of commerce to find unusual stories and unsung heroes. He had total freedom to discover the United States.

     In the early 1970s, CBS considered reassigning Ku­ralt, but he was ever reluctant to leave the road. He did serve as co-host with Sylvia Chase on the short-lived CBS News Adventure in 1970, and in May 1974, on Magazine, an afternoon news and features program. He also contributed pieces to another short-lived prime-time magazine show, Who's Who (1977). With Dan Rather and Barbara Howar concentrating on more famous, high-profile newsmakers, he brought, in typical Kuralt fashion, the Who's Who viewing audience such unlikely characters as the inventor of the shopping cart, champion boomerang throwers, and an 89- year-old kite flier.

     With network assurance that he could continue "On the Road," on January 28, 1979, Kuralt assumed the anchor position on the new CBS News Sunday Morning. Leisurely paced and low-key, in keeping with its early Sunday morning time slot, the 90-minute show examined major headlines and provided a weekly in­ depth cover story and a series of special reports on law, science, the environment, music, the arts, education, and world affairs. In essence, with its eclectic view of the United States, Sunday Morning became a natural extension of "On the Road," providing an outlet for topics not regularly covered on other newscasts. Commented Milton Rhodes, president of the American Council for the Arts, in the June 1987 issue of Horizon: "Nowhere else on television does a journalist of Kuralt's reputation discuss the arts as regularly, as fully, and as intelligently as he."

     For 18 months, Kuralt combined his Sunday Morning activities with his ongoing "On the Road" reports, but in October 1980 he left the road to become anchor for the daily morning network news offering. Morning with Charles Kuralt would be criticized for being too slow-paced for the time period, and, in mid­ March 1982 Kuralt was replaced as anchor and sent back out on the road. Within two years, his new "On the Road" reports became the centerpiece of yet another short-lived prime-time series, The American Parade.

     Openly opposed to the fast-paced, minimal information format of many news broadcasts, through the years Kuralt chastised television executives for "hiring hair instead of brains." Quoted in TV Guide on April 2, 1994, Kuralt said, "I am ashamed that so many [anchorpersons] haven't any basis on which to make a news judgment, can't edit, can't write, and can't cover a story." As TV Guide' s Neil Hickey reported, these are all things Kuralt could do and for which he was honored with 11 Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards.

     Into the 1990s, Kuralt continued his Sunday Morning efforts and for an approximate five-month period beginning in October 1990, co-hosted the nightly news summary, America Tonight, four nights a week, with Lesley Stahl. Then on April 3, 1994, at the age of 59, he retired from CBS with a poetic good-bye to his audience at the conclusion of his Sunday Morning broadcast. In 1997 he came out of his short-lived retirement to host two new television offerings, An American Moment, a syndicated series of 90-second vignettes on American life, and / Remember, a weekly one-hour broadcast examining major news stories from the past 30 years. However, his health deteriorated, and in June 1997 he was diagnosed with lupus. Kuralt died of heart failure and complications from lupus on July 4, 1997, and he was buried on the campus of his alma mater, the University of North Carolina.

Described by Newsweek on July 4, 1983, as "our beloved visiting uncle" and a "de Tocqueville in a motorhome," Kuralt worked to awaken the United States to the beauty of its landscape, the depth, and character of its people, and the qualities of excellence possible in television journalism. On the occasion of his death, Kuralt's long-time CBS associate Dan Rather echoed those sentiments in the New York Times: "Charles's essays were miniature movies, carefully scripted, filmed, and edited," said Rather. "They told us about our life and times. They had breadth, depth, and sweep to engage the eye, ear and mind."