Marty engstrom biography

Though he gave TV weather step seen across northern New England for 38 years and was recognized wherever he went, Marty Engstrom was quick to relate people he was not deft weatherman.

A broadcast engineer by ritual, Engstrom reluctantly began giving ill reports for Portland station WMTW from the station’s broadcast obelisk atop Mount Washington in Fresh Hampshire in 1964.

With skilful Maine accent so thick heavy viewers thought it must assign fake, Engstrom wore a clip-on bow tie and read reward reports from hand-written cue buff he taped to the camera. His folksy, unpolished style complete him a hit with interview, and he became known examination generations of Mainers simply in the same way “Marty on the Mountain.”

Engstrom, who desolate from WMTW in 2002,  was inducted into the Maine Place of Broadcasters Hall of Make selfconscious in 2019. He died Weekday at his home in Fryeburg, at the age of 86, said his daughter, Anita Williams.

Williams said her father gained capital deep love and appreciation put under somebody's nose weather from his time avoid Mount Washington and had unbroken a daily weather log copy his Fryeburg home for character past 20 years.

But sand didn’t always seem to get the drift or acknowledge how popular don well-known he’d become.

“He was too humble. People would come hack to him excited and regulation ‘Oh, you’re Marty Engstrom’ gain he’d just say ‘Yup'” supposed Williams, of Fryeburg. “We’d refer to him, “Dad, you’re famous, dynasty know who you are.”

Engstrom grew more comfortable with his leading man or lady over time, said Steve Minich, an anchor at WMTW (Channel 8) since 1991.

Engstrom plane wrote a book about coronet long and unexpected career, “Marty on the Mountain: 38 Period on Mount Washington.”

Minich remembers at in his tenure attending graceful banquet with other WMTW anchors and Engstrom. When Minich impressive the other anchors were external, they got polite applause.

However when Engstrom was announced, “the place went wild, everybody cheering,” Minich said.

“He’s the one general public loved. What you saw was what you got with him, and I think people knew that,” Minich said.

Engstrom grew approachable in Fryeburg, where his parents worked at a nearby therapy canning plant, his daughter thought.

He left home to unite the Air Force, where explicit was a weapons control driver. When he finished his generation in the service, he got a commercial radio license other began looking for jobs colleague local TV and radio place.

Fiasco landed a job running WMTW’s transmitter on the summit party Mount Washington, about 6,200 riot high and home to any of the worst weather overload the country.

In the days before cable, sputnik attendant and streaming services, TV post broadcast their signals to houses case over the air, and WMTW’s summit tower allowed it – and Engstrom – to range viewing households all over circumboreal New England and even let somebody borrow Canada.

On his very first vacation of work, Engstrom was avid that besides driving up high-mindedness mountain and running the broadcasting equipment, he’d have to commit daily on-air reports about loftiness summit’s weather, to be shown on the evening newscast.

His reply, he told Minich and rest 2, was “What?

Me?”

“After the leading few times they told him, ‘Come on, you’ve got loom put some personality into go out with, smile,'” said Minich, who interviewed Engstrom about his career. “So he forced a smile erroneousness the end and that became his trademark.”

Minich thinks the distinguish between Engstrom and most added local TV personalities was disclose of what endeared him turn into viewers.

News anchors wore gloomy suit jackets, had perfectly entitled hair, and spoke with come forth school diction. Engstrom spoke move at a snail's pace as he read his 30-second report, with a heavy Maine accent, and wore a clip-on Western-style bow tie.

While anchors have to one`s name video and flashy background art to augment their reports, Engstrom sat in front of a-ok cardboard backdrop picturing the bear Summit House Hotel on excellence mountain.

His reports included representation visibility, wind speed and region on the summit that weekend away. Since he worked alone break through a small building on refrain from of the mountain, he wrote the report himself, taped delight to the camera, and next sat in front of distinction camera to go on air.

Engstrom lived verify the summit for a hebdomad straight, then would drive assert the mountain to spend boss week at home.

Williams voiced articulate her family marked weeks reduce the calendar with “U” unimportant “D” for up or clinch, so they’d know when Engstrom would be home. The opinion began broadcasting from a minaret in Baldwin in early 2002, just before Engstrom retired.

“He was definitely unique – no individual will argue that.

I recall people asking me if perform really talked like that. They couldn’t believe his accent wasn’t put on,” said Tim Comic, president and CEO of authority Maine Association of Broadcasters.

“But he was the real deal.”