[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 34 (Thursday, March 16, 2006)] [Senate] [Page S2308] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] HONORING THE LIFE OF SAMUEL M. SHARKEY, JRMr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise to pay tribute to Sam Sharkey, who died on Tuesday at the age of 90. Mr. Sharkey, who joined the New York Times in 1945 as a copy editor on the foreign desk, was one of the founding executives of its International Air Edition, now the International Herald Tribune, in 1948, and in 1950 he became head of the national news desk. Five years later, he moved to the National Broadcasting Company as its first editor of NBC News, a position comparable to the editor of a newspaper, and was one of a triumvirate of executives who in 1956 put together the Huntley-Brinkley news program. While working at the Times, he had become frustrated with the slowness with which the two major wire services reported national election returns--one relayed all returns from west of Kansas City through that city and the other through Chicago, both producing delays. In 1956 at NBC, he invented a system based at the start on buying the fastest Associated Press State wires in every State and funneling their returns electronically through 10 centers around the United States, thence to computers in Studio 8-H in New York, where they were displayed immediately, beating all competition by substantial margins. His system for collecting votes in national elections is still used today by broadcasters, wire services, and newspapers. In 1958, Mr. Sharkey expanded the system and turned to volunteer teams of members of the League of Women Voters in every State who staffed every polling place and phoned in results to State headquarters, where the data were sent electronically directly to computers in the studio. In 1960, CBS News and the ABC News were added to form the Network Election Service, a cooperative. That was expanded with the addition of the A.P. and United Press International to form the News Election Service, which continues to this day. At NBC, Mr. Sharkey also headed an internal NBC News Service at national political conventions linking reporters at various locations with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley at the anchor desk. Born March 26, 1915, in Trenton, NJ, he began covering sports on a ``stringer,'' free lance, basis for the Trenton State Gazette at the age of 13. He attended Rutgers University in the class of 1937 but was a Depression dropout. He then worked for the State Gazette as sports editor, columnist, reporter, music and theater critic, and acting city editor. Among the stories he covered were the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby and the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, the crash of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst, and the burning of the Bermuda cruise liner Morro Castle off Asbury Park, NJ. He was a copy editor on the Saratoga Springs, NY, Saratogian and foreign editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer during World War II. He also was a contributing editor to Printing News. At NBC, he was a member of the FCC National Industry Advisory Committee that created the Emergency Broadcast System, and he wrote the broadcast closed-circuit radio advisories from every location to which a President could be taken in time of national emergency--in the air, on land, at sea, under the sea. In 1963, Mr. Sharkey moved to Seattle as managing director of news for the King Broadcasting Company's stations there and in Spokane, WA, and Portland, OR. While at KING-TV, he won two local Emmys for news and documentary programming. When Bonneville International Corporation purchased KIRO-TV-AM Seattle in 1964, he was appointed corporate director of news for all Bonneville stations nationwide. In 1965, Mr. Sharkey was named Newhouse National Service economics and labor columnist, based in Washington, DC, later adding the news editor role. He entered government in 1972 as public information director for the then-new Occupational Safety and Health Administration, OSHA, moving to the same position at the FCC in 1975. Mr. Sharkey also taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for 9 years and taught economics and public affairs at the Tobe-Coburn School for Fashion Careers in New York. Known as a witty speaker, he lectured widely for the Times and NBC News. He also was a choral singer, a private airplane pilot, an automobile and outboard motorboat race driver, a motor yachtsman, and even a clown in the Aquacade at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Mr. Sharkey was a life member and former vice commodore of the Capital Yacht Club here in Washington, DC. Sam Sharkey was a pioneer in journalism for over 70 years, and he left an indelible mark, especially in the field of broadcast journalism. I extend my condolences to his wife Marilyn and the rest of his family. ____________________