Growing up in Siluria, outside Alabaster, Alabama, Pat Gray attended Thompson High School where she demonstrated her leadership ability by becoming head majorette. After moving to and graduating from Ramsey High School, Pat entered the Miss Alabama pageant where she barely missed winning the crown. The pageant provided her with a scholarship to a finishing school where ladies were taught the art of entertaining, etiquette and other social graces. After that, she started work as a secretary at The Club. It was there she was “discovered” by a WBRC television representative and the rest, as we say, is history.

Pat immediately began as on-air personality on the station’s morning show. Later, she married Tom York, but not the same Tom York she sat beside on The Morning Show from 1958-1962. With no meteorological experience, station management knew she could handle the job and assigned her weather. Having no access to radar, Pat developed a resource at the Birmingham airport who gave her the day’s weather predictions. She used a pointer and a simple graphics map during her report. In addition to weather, Pat participated in all segments of The Morning Show, even changing into her black leotards and joining her co-host in a regular exercise segment.

When her time on The Morning Show ended, Pat continued working for the station, often conducting interviews with celebrities visiting Birmingham. Some of her fond memories were interviews with Vincent Price, Joan Crawford and Clint Eastwood. Then, at
3 p.m. each day, she hosted a program for young people.  Every year, WBRC sponsored an on-air cerebral palsy telethon and featured celebrities from upcoming ABC television fall programs. Pat looked forward to working the telethon and helped raise funds for the cerebral palsy association. In addition to being a television personality, wife and mom, Pat modeled professionally for several businesses. She was also a spokesperson for Pepsi.

Her daughter, Vicki York Flynn, remembers being picked up after school by her mom; if her mom was busy, friend and station celebrity Joe Langston would run the errand. Flynn would spend after-school hours in her mom’s office. She recalls her mom was “a professional from the get-go,” and never heard her complain about any challenges Pat faced in the broadcast business. In 1979, Pat moved to Panama City, Florida, where she finished her on-air career.

Thinking back over her mom’s career and accomplishments, Flynn thinks Pat’s biggest enjoyment was “how proud she made her mother.” Pat’s mother was immobile because of rheumatoid arthritis. Flynn says, “The world stopped when (Pat) came on. Grandma never missed her on TV.”

Flynn remembers fans asking her mom for autographs. Drawing from her personality and her early etiquette training, Pat never refused a request, always chatted with fans, and left everyone feeling as though they were part of her family…the same way her television audience felt all those years.