Lew wood public relations

Lew wood public relations, Lew Wood, a former correspondent for CBS News who covered President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and later held the news anchor’s chair on the “Today” show, died on Wednesday at a hospice in Riverside County in California. He was 84.

The cause was kidney failure, his daughter Brigitte Wood said.

NBC hired Mr. Wood to succeed the longtime anchor of “Today,” Frank Blair, in 1975. But he left the job after just a year in a program shake-up and was succeeded by Floyd Kalber. He had previously been a news anchor for WNBC in New York.

Mr. Wood was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, as part of the CBS team covering President Kennedy’s swing through Texas. That morning he covered a breakfast speech Kennedy had made in nearby Fort Worth and snapped a personal photo of the president greeting well-wishers. After Kennedy left for Dallas, Mr. Wood headed to a restaurant for lunch. On the way, he stopped to phone a fellow correspondent, Dan Rather, who was covering the president’s motorcade.

In an entry on the Web site reportersnotebook.net, Mr. Wood recalled Mr. Rather telling him, “Hold on, Lew — don’t go away,” then quickly coming back on the line to say that the president had been shot and that Mr. Wood should go to the hospital.

Mr. Wood, who earned a degree in speech and broadcasting from Purdue, began his career at WDZ-AM in Decatur, Ill., in 1952. A year later, he joined WSBT radio and TV in South Bend, Ind.

After leaving television, Mr. Wood worked in public relations, retiring in 2006. In addition to his daughter Brigitte, he is survived by his wife, Monique; a son, Robert; two other daughters, Carole Gorenflo and Lara Wood; 10 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.