BATON ROUGE — Brooks Read was the face of early TV news in Baton Rouge during the 1950s and ‘60s.

Read was known as the Esso Reporter, reporting with a large Esso sign in front of him.

Read was a news pioneer, setting the standards for WBRZ and local news coverage. He covered big stories like Hurricane Audrey, which struck the coast on June 27, 1957, and destroyed Cameron and killed 416 people.

Read described Cameron as a town that died a sudden death in his reporting.

Early news viewers also turned to him on coverage of the funeral of Gov. Earl Long.

During his tenure from 1955 to 1964 also got big interviews with people like segregationist Gov. Jimmie Davis, who talked about his back-to-school plans in the ‘60s.

Reed passed away in 1991.