Emmy-winning anchor Glover moving on from ABC 13, Houston
After eight years, ABC 13 anchor Chauncy Glover — one of the city’s most familiar faces — is leaving Houston.
The Emmy award-winning journalist announced his departure on the 6:30 p.m. news Tuesday. He’ll be leaving Texas for another job opportunity.
As a child, Glover was drawn to TV news. His dad built him a pretend anchor desk so that every Sunday after church, Glover could report the family news and gossip right from his living room. He went on to graduate with a degree in journalism from Troy University in Troy, Ala., getting his first TV job as a reporter in Columbus, Ga.
He worked in TV in Jacksonville, Fla., for two years, then worked in Detroit for three years before moving to Houston in 2015.
Glover is also the founder of the Chauncy Glover Project, a yearlong mentoring and college preparatory program for Black and Latino boys he founded in 2014. The program has given more than $250,000 in scholarships and served more than 200 boys and young men.
The students participate in tutoring, team-building activities and leadership training that culminates with a black-tie gala in which they perform an original play written by Glover and based on the boy’s lives. This year’s gala was recently held late June.
Glover gets emotional when he talks about the boys in his program and their transformations from boys to men. He spoke with the Chronicle last month about his project:
Q: You’ve called the Chauncy Glover Project your spiritual calling. Why?
A: God showed me early on that this was a calling for me. Sometimes it’s fascinating to me that God is using me to impact the lives and change the lives of young men in our community. It’s not something I take lightly. I love these young men like they are my own. They make me so proud. We’ve sent more than 250 young boys of color to college, and we’ve mentored more than 500, but now I’m seeing them coming back. They’ve graduated with degrees, and they’re moving back to Houston, getting jobs and staying down the street from me. That’s part of all the joy.
Q. Why is your effort to empower Black and Latino boys so crucial right now?
A: Police officials and city officials will tell you that a lot of the crimes we’re seeing in our community are being committed by teenagers, ages 16 to 24, and even as young as 14. So we’ve got to get a better handle on our youth and see how we can tap into them more to keep them off the streets and keep them into more productive things. When it comes to Black and brown boys, there’s been this automatic rule that they need discipline, discipline, discipline. Yes, we do believe in discipline, but we also learned that in most of these cases, they just need more love and more support. They need someone who’s going to be there, and someone they want to make proud.
Q: Why are role models so important?
A. Our boys can’t be what they can’t see. So, exposure is a very important part of our program, exposing these young men to things that they normally would not be exposed to. Oftentimes, they think their dreams aren’t obtainable. So when we expose them to these things, when we lead them, guide them and mentor them, they can achieve whatever dream is in their hearts. We let them know that it is obtainable.