By: Zeb Hargett

Peter Albrecht has always been one of my favorite people. Whether he is reporting the news for WKRG News 5 or working to honor the legacy of athletes by serving on the board of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, he is professional and engaging. Recently, I was fortunate to sit down with Peter for “the rest of the story.”

Born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, he was a star first baseman and attended Carleton College in nearby Northfield. He wanted a small, academically challenging school l where he could continue to play baseball. He majored in History, thinking he might go into teaching, coaching, or maybe attending law school. Broadcasting subsequently entered the picture.

“While I was in college, I started doing some radio reporting for the college station and another station in town. It started as a nightly sports report and then progressed to my doing play-by-play for football and basketball. I did an internship after college with a Minnesota state-wide radio network.”

Peter decided to shift from radio to television and enrolled in a one-year Masters program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, which included hands-on reporting in Chicago and Washington, DC.

Now committed to a career in broadcasting, he put together “a resume tape” (this is how reporters advanced in the mid to late 80s) and landed a job in 1986 in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. “I started as the weekend sports guy, was promoted to Sports Director, and eventually became a news anchor. I was there three and a half years before landing a position at WRKG in Mobile in 1990.”

Almost 35 years later, Peter is entrenched as one of the leading broadcast journalists in the Scenic 98 Coastal market. The move from LaCrosse to Mobile begged the question, how?

“The summer after I graduated from college, I went to Europe on one of those ‘See 20 countries in 40 days’ student tours that were popular at the time. On the trip, I met a girl, Julie Fikes, from Athens, Alabama, who went to Auburn University. A long-distance relationship ensued, and Julie and I married four years later.”

After tying the knot, the newlyweds decided they wanted to move to one of their homes, either in Minnesota or Alabama. The decision to take an open position at WKRG in Mobile killed two birds with one stone. While the move got them to Alabama, it also was a larger broadcast market than his previous position.. Peter became the weekend news anchor at WKRG.

“In those early years, I anchored weekend news and sports and reported during the week. I was used in a lot of different ways. There was never a dull moment and I really enjoyed it. For example, I remember one night covering the last legislative session in Montgomery and then the next day going to Baton Rouge to cover the South Alabama Jags in the first round of the NCAA Baseball Tournament. When I got there, Lee Shirvanian got laryngitis, so I ended up doing the play-by-play on WKRG radio.”

In 1996, WKRG sold the radio station about the time it launched a 5:00 pm newscast and  Peter was named co-anchor. “Julie and I were starting our family and the stability of being a weekday anchor was something I embraced.”

In 2000, Peter left WKRG to work with another local station where he anchored the 5 pm, 6 pm, and 10 pm newscasts. After seven years there, Peter took a position as Marketing and Economic Development Director for Mobile County.

“I was in on the tail end of Mobile’s recruitment of the Thyssen-Krupp Steel Plant and right in the middle of efforts to land Airbus and the Air Force refueling tanker contract.  Those were interesting times. We won the tanker contract, then the Pentagon rebid it and Boeing was chosen. We shifted focus to getting Airbus here to make passenger aircraft.”

He continues, “It was a very rewarding process and has proven to be a great thing for the area. Mobile had the physical setup at Brookley Field and with a level of trust established between local officials and Airbus executives, it worked. While we were all upset about losing the tanker deal, we are much better off the way it turned out. And Boeing has had a lot of issues delivering those tankers to the military.” 

In 2013, Peter returned to broadcasting and WKRG News 5. He had run into the station’s General Manager while their sons were playing against each other at a high school basketball game. The GM asked if he was interested in getting back into the news. “I guess I thrive in the weird world of news. It’s hectic, with lots of pressure, and bad hours, but I love it,” he says.

We discussed the changes he’s seen in his almost 35 years in broadcasting. “When I started at WKRG, we did 2.5 hours of news per day. Now we do 2.5 hours of news before 7 am! And we do it with far fewer people. Technology has allowed that. But while technology has changed a lot, the process of collecting and disseminating the news in an interesting, informative, and entertaining fashion has not. Knowing the right people to talk to, gathering information, and then writing and editing a concise story that makes sense, is still at the heart of any good reporting, whether you are in the field or on the anchor desk.”

Peter’s daily schedule consists of arriving at the station around 1:30 pm and getting home around 11 pm. He records news reports for a dozen or so radio stations from Mobile to Pensacola, participates in editorial meetings about story coverage, and writes scripts for the 5:00, 6:00, and 10:00 pm broadcasts.

“Anchors are the final editors of that evening’s content. We try to keep each show fresh so we are not repeating too many stories. The news changes a lot throughout the day. Typically, what you see at 10 pm is very different from what you see at 5 pm. 

The recent election also kept Peter busy. He produced numerous stories on the historic District 2 congressional race, providing different angles and perspectives. 

Regarding the news in general, he says, “The newsroom is a different work environment than what most people experience. It’s fun! I like the challenge of putting together something informative and entertaining - something that people want to devote 30 minutes of their time to. There are lots of options for news. I take the responsibility of reporting the events of the day very seriously.”

He tells me the people he works with, co-anchors Rose Ann Haven and Devon Walsh, Meteorologist Ed Bloodsworth, Sports Director Simone Eli, and the entire team, are like family. “They are great people, fun to be around, and very good at what they do.”

Peter says Mobile is a different place than when he began. “In 1990, Mayor Mike Dow was just putting his “String of Pearls” in place. There was no Convention Center, no Government Plaza, no RSA Tower, and there were very few restaurants, and a lot of boarded-up buildings on Dauphin Street. Look at it now! And of course, the Eastern Shore and all of Baldwin County have exploded. I don’t know where the State of Alabama would be financially without the tourism dollars that Baldwin County brings in.”  

Peter began serving on the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame board in 2010 and spends a lot of time researching potential inductees. He is excited to see the City honoring the six Mobile Professional Hall of Famers by erecting statues to be placed along Water Street near the RSA Tower and the Arthur Outlaw Convention Center.

Outside of work, you might find Peter on the baseball diamond. At age 62, he is still playing about 30 games a year in the Mobile Men’s Baseball League, something he has enjoyed since 1994. While most players are in their twenties or thirties, “at least there's one old man still in the league,” he says with pride. 

He and his wife, Julie, an 11th-grade History teacher at St. Paul’s Episcopal School  (no relation to Peter’s hometown) enjoy traveling. Their three adult children, Louis, Carter, and Katie are all gainfully employed and successful in their own right. He is quick to point out that when he and Julie are out on the town, she is the celebrity, not him. “Her former students are everywhere. And they adore her.”

As a versatile, endearing, sincere television personality, Peter Albrecht is a trusted source of news delivery in the Scenic 98 Coastal communities. We are fortunate to have him keeping us informed. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent with him and look forward to visiting with him anytime I can. Thanks, Peter, that was fun!