Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to like in BL Classics. In this spring 2004 profile, we learn about North Texas weathercaster Troy Dungan, known for his calm, friendly, Christ-like demeanor and presentation of the weather.
It’s fairly easy to forecast a typical day in the life of veteran weatherman Troy Dungan. Think of a stable high-pressure system more than a dramatic cold front or fast-approaching tornadoes. His workday usually begins around 2:30 p.m., when we arrives at WFAA-TV/Channel 8’s studios in downtown Dallas. The 1959 Baylor graduate then quickly goes into production mode, spending time looking at satellite maps and checking the weather patterns for the area and around the country. From there, he starts working on his forecast – what North Texans can expect for the next few days.
Dungan is systematic about his work, and his duties as WFAA’s chief weather anchor often fall into a predictable daily routine. But the job can provide some thrills and chills, especially on those days and nights when the Texas weather is behaving like, well, Texas weather.
Though he enjoys a perfect day as much as the next guy, Dungan admits that extreme weather, while dangerous, has an upside for a weathercaster. “I’d rather have a day when something is really happening,” he says. “With tornadoes or something going on, the day passes very quickly.”
More importantly, that’s when a weathercaster’s abilities are most valuable to a worried community looking for information, and many say the sixty-seven-year-old Dungan is at his best when threatening or harsh weather is on the way.
Take the Friday before Valentine’s Day this year, when anxious residents peered from their windows at work or at home throughout the day as menacing clouds – snow clouds, of all things – began to gather. But Dungan was reliable and reassuring, as always. Yes, it would be cold, he told viewers. Yes, it would almost certainly snow, though that wouldn’t come until the early morning hours of Saturday. And although the snow would have some areas of heavy accumulation, there probably wouldn’t be much ice.
“Troy communicates with people better than any other weather person I’ve ever seen.” – David Duitch, WFAA news director
But of course Dungan’s audience of Texans, who aren’t known for their talents in dealing with winter weather, were still anxious. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, some businesses made weather-related alternate plans. So did many individuals. Dungan was on call but tried to keep things in perspective.
“I’m telling people hat it’s going to snow, but that it won’t happen until overnight,” he said that night at WFAA’s studios. “If you’ve got somewhere to go, get up in the morning and go and then come home. There’ll be snow on the ground but there shouldn’t be any ice, so tthe roads should be okay.”
But just to keep folks assured, station officials had Dungan do all of that night’s newsbreaks – the little teasers that local news anchor usually present between their network’s primetime shows each night – to give viewers the latest weather information. In times of extremely severe weather, Dungan and other Channel 8 forecasters will even pull an all-nighter, if necessary.
This event, though, would not require such drastic action.
“Oh, my goodness, no,” he said when asked if he might spend the night at the station. “Nothing is really going to happen until early in the morning anyway, and even that shouldn’t be that dangerous. THere’s no reason for me to stay.”
Throughout the evening, he chatted easily with station employees between the newsbreaks. Like most anchors, Dungan will often go out to dinner in the hours between the end of the 6 p.m. newscast and the beginning of the 10 p.m. show. But because he was going to be doing a “live hit” every thirty minutes or so, the station ordered in pizza.
“This isn’t that big of a deal, really,” a smiling Dungan said. “But people want to know what’s going on. And I’ll tell them.”
At 10 p.m., with folks around the Dallas-Forth Worth area tuned in to see just how bad it would be, Dungan told them again what he had been saying for hours: The snow is definitely coming, but it won’t paralyze the area. Be careful, but not fearful. And by Saturday afternoon, temperatures will reach into the 40s, warm enough to melt away most of the snow.
Sure enough, North Texans awoke Valentine’s Day morning to a thick blanket of the white and fluffy stuff on their rooftops and lawns. And, as he said, it didn’t freeze and driving wasn’t that treacherous. By that afternoon, the snow was beginning to quickly melt, just like Dungan had said.
Good ol’ Troy was right on the money. Again. Why did anyone even worry?
A great communicator
What many people may not realize is that forecasters, even those working at the same station, can – and often do – have differing forecasts. Dungan explains that some things in the weather are fairly certain, but many other matters are more subjective. For example, when a forecaster estimates the next day’s high temperature, there is really no way to know if that exact temperature will occur. The figure is a target number, based on data available at the time the forecast is being prepared and an individual forecaster’s interpretation of that information.
That’s why most forecasters, including Dungan, say they don’t get too excited or disappointed about the outcome of their predictions. They all know they can’t be perfect. And no matter what, they’ll always get another chance to do it all again the next day.
From time to time, someone will raise the point that Dungan, though one of the area’s most trusted weather forecasters, is not an official meteorologist, a title that once was a major factor in viewers’ determining how much weight to give a particular forecast. While most stations still tout the presence of a meteorologist on their staff, Dungan has always suggested that some overrate the designation.
He believes the ability to tell viewers exactly what is going on is more important than scientific training. That’s why communicating whatever is happening with the weather is so important. David Duitch, news director at WFAA and Dungan’s boss, says the ability to do that well is Dungan’s forte.
“Troy communicates with people better than any other weather person I’ve ever seen,” Duitch says. “He delivers the weather on camera in a way that speaks directly to the viewer and, most importantly, is clear and easy to understand.”
No doubt that’s why folks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have made a habit of turning to trusty Troy Dungan when bad weather approaches or when they are looking for a positive forecast while planning a weekend outing.
Nine years ago things got hectic when a sudden, violent hailstorm struck Fort Wortth in the middle of the Mayfest Arts Festival. More then one hundred people were injured when the frozen stones pelted them as they sought cover. Dungan was on the air trying to tell of the danger, but the storm caught him, and other weathercasters, by surprise.
Fort Worth was the target again just five years later, in 2000, when a massive tornado blew through downtown, destroying several buildings before skipping over to Arlington and damaging houses there. Dungan again was at his post, but the tornado moved so quickly that it was difficult to broadcast warnings before the funnel cloud touched down in some places.
Dungan’s calm demeanor, clear descriptions, and always-pleasant personality help make even the most dire weather event manageable. That’s not just the way he delivers the nightly weather forecast, though. It’s the way he lives his life.
“The wonderful thing about Troy is that off camera he is the same person,” Duitch says. “He is a great communicator who is warm and friendly.”
Dungan says much of that goes back to lessons his father taught him while growing up in Hillsboro.
“My dad taught me that you’re no better than anybody else and that nobody else is better than you,” says Dungan. “We’re all in this together, so why not be nice?”
That attitude, along with his unyielding religious faith, allows him to treat viewers as his friends because he believes that they really are. And in everything he says and does, he wants his friends, the viewers, to know and see the true passion of his life – his faith in God.
“Everything you do, you can do it as unto the Lord,” Dungan says. “You can witness without being obtrusive. People know I’m a Christian. I think people see that.”
Many see it through his work as the public face of Santa’s Helper, the decades-old, annual toy drive sponsored by WFAA. During this drive, Dungan takes some days off from the station to personally receive toys at certain drop-off locations. He loves that job because, he says, it gives him another chance to witness and exercise his faith. Last year’s program took in a record eighty-two thousand toys for fifty-two thousand youngsters.
“When I came here, it was just something the weatherman had always done,” he says of the program. “It’s so much bigger than that now.”
An unlikely ministry
Dungan acknowledges that his Christian witness was “sort of latent” until a few years ago, when he started a weekly Bible study help each Wednesday at Channel 8. The thirty-minute sessions, which begin at 1 p.m. and are open to employees at Channel 8 and The Dallas Morning News – its Belo corporate relative – attract anywhere from just a few people to two or three dozen.
Dungan usually teaches on some particular point – recently the group has been going through Rick Warren’s bestseller The Purpose Driven Life – and then concludes by leading the group in intercessory prayer. It is clear that Dungan believes the sessions are a major part of his personal mission to share the gospel, and he acknowledges that they are the highlight of his workweek.
“I really enjoy the Bible study,” he says. “It’s a real privilege to get to do it. People really lay their prayer requests on the table. You learn to trust each other.”
One recent Wednesday, he uses handwritten notes to relay high points from chapter 14 of Warren’s book. A couple of times, he opens a huge biblical concordance to get the exact meaning of a particular word, taking time to explain the value of the gigantic study aid. He sprinkles humorous anecdotes and sayings throughout the discussion, never leaving his central theme. His presentation is brief, but thorough, much like the few moments he gets on air each night to talk about the weather. In fact, he says his television experience helps him teach the study session.
“I could do the Bible in Cliffs Notes if I had to,” Dungan jokes. “I think because I’ve been in this business so long, I know how to really boil it down to about three minutes.”
At the close of his teaching this day, he asks those attending for names or situations they want placed on the prayer list. As they call out names, Dungan writes them down on his paper. Soon, he will be praying for a variety of issues, from healings to safe blessings on trips and even for a specific co-worker to accept Christ.
When the session ends, the excitement is still apparent in Dungan’s eyes. He is particularly happy for the opportunity to pray for so many needs and concerns, some of which are quite personal in nature.
“You see, it’s just like I told you,” Dungan says. “No one is afraid to open up here because they trust us. They know we aren’t going to go running around telling it all over the building. Trust is the key.”
Those who attend the sessions say they serve as a sort of weekly inspirational vitamin for their lives.
“It’s really important to us,” says Ruth Silva, a WFAA employee who is a regular at the gatherings. “It gives us a chance to come and hear about the Word and also to pray together.”
Co-worker Mary Eddings, another regular at the Bible study, agrees with Silva. “I just came in for the prayer,” Eddings says, adding that Dungan makes the time special. “He loves the Lord, and it shows.”
Bowties galore
Born in Ennis but raised in Hillsboro, Dungan grew up in a Baptist family and even then was concerned about doing the right thing. In a 2001 interview with The Dallas Morning News, Janet, his wife of thirty-one years, said her husband has always put character first.
“When he was a teenager, he would always think about the consequences of his actions,” she said then. “That’s just the way he is.”
Dungan’s Baptist upbringing led him to Baylor, where he majored in political science and radio-TV. He always knew it was the right place for him, and he says he appreciates the university as much today as he did when he graduated forty-five years ago.
“Despite the problems it has had in the last year, it’s still a good place,” he says. “I’m always telling people that.”
Dungan’s calm demeanor, clear descriptions, and always-pleasant personality help make even the most dire weather event manageable.
So good that he sent his daughter, Wyn-Erin, to school there in the 1990s. He says Baylor still offered the same things that he found important when he attended. “You can get into trouble anywhere, I guess, but there’s a moral atmosphere there that’s good. I think if you go there, you’ll wind up pretty good.”
Dungan certainly has. Although he went to Baylor with aspirations of becoming a politician like his boyhood friend Bob Bullock, the late Texas lieutenant governor and 1958 Baylor law graduate, television came calling first. He started his career at KBTX in Bryan as a reporter and then headed to Orlando, Florida, soon after that. But shortly after his arrival in the Sunshine State, the station where he worked needed a weatherman. He got the job.
The rest, as they say, is television history.
After Orlando, Dungan made stops at stations in Houston, Philadelphia, and Detroit, where he met Janet. Detroit was also the city where, in 1974, he donned what would eventually become his sartorial trademark – a bowtie.
What started as a matter of fashion convenience – bowties allowed him to wear a tie with sweaters in in the cold weather – has now become a permanent staple of Dungan’s wardrobe. He estimates that he owns nearly two hundred pieces of neckwear and every one, he asserts, is a bowtie.
“There are two ways to wear a bowtie,” he explains, “neat or sloppy. I’m a little bit of a neat-freak, so I always try to make mine even.”
Because he manually ties each of his ties – no wimpy clip-ons for him – he has to work with them a little to make sure they look right, though time and practice have helped make the job easier. One trick he employs is to use a piece of double-sided tape to keep the different parts of the tie exactly even and in place.
After a few years in Detroit, Dungan returned home to North Texas in 1976 to take over the weather reins at WFAA. At the time, it gave his now-deceased parents the opportunity to watch their only child work. He and Janet moved into a house in North Dallas, which he now refers to as his “Thank-God-It’s-Paid-For House” – and he went before the cameras at WFAA.
All three – his wife, their home, and his job – remain the same, an example of the consistency that is the very essence of Troy Dungan.
Signing off
WFAA news anchor Gloria Campos, a longtime friend and Channel 8 colleague, says she wouldn’t expect anything less than consistency and perfection from Dungan.
“I respect his abilities as a weathercaster because he is just so darn natural,” Campos says. “He really is like the viewers’ friend, telling them what they need to know in an authoritative, yet not too complicated way.”
As Campos explains, “Some weathercasters like to show off their knowledge by using complicated, scientific terms” in their presentations. She says that while Dungan knows the same terms and could easily use them, he “understands that the viewer needs to have the information straight on.”
But she quickly adds that being “straight on” doesn’t necessarily mean being rigid and dry.
“I adore Troy’s sense of humor,” Campos says. “If he stumbles – and that doesn’t happen often – he makes a little joke, saying, ‘It’s tough to get a good fit by mail.’ And then he pulls up on his teeth with is fingers as if to adjust his dentures. He doesn’t have any, of course, and it cracks me up.”
Enjoy him while you can, Gloria and North Texas. The forecast calls for stormy weather for those who have come to love and trust Dungan when he finally decides to call it quits. And according to Dungan, that day may not be too far off. “I’ll probably give this up in July 2006,” says a smiling Dungan. “That will be thirty years here at Channel 8. I think I’ll be ready to go by then.”
But Dungan admits that Channel 8 executives have already started discussing with him the possibility of extending his contract beyond its current 2006 end. At this point, however, he says that such an extension seems unlikely.
“There are some things I want to do,” he says. “I want to do some writing. And we love to travel, especially to Italy. And I want to continue my work with Master-media,” a company he describes as ministry to those in the entertainment industry.
“I’m sure there’ll be some separation anxiety,” Dungan says of his plans. “We have a really good group of people here. But I think that once you get a mindset to do something else, you kind of prepare for that.”
And no matter what the future holds, trust Troy to be prepared.
