In the mid-1970’s, a teacher was struggling to find a way to reach into homes and educate families with Head Start children.  In an uncanny twist of fate, the teacher found herself on television, producing quality children’s programing and making a difference in the lives of countless Alabamans for 35 years. We thank you Rosie Seaman for your dedication and are so happy to induct you into the Alabama Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.

“I was teaching Head Start teachers at Spring Hill College,” says Seaman. “I was working for Father Albert Foley who headed up the school and I went to his office one day and I said, ‘You know Father, we need to get to the mothers. You’re teaching teachers but nothing is going to get anywhere if we can’t get into their homes and teach them.’”

Foley had a brilliant idea to solve Seaman’s problem. “He told me I was made for television, and I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re taking about,” laughs Seaman.  Foley picked up the phone and called Kenneth Gibbons who started WKRG-TV.  Indeed, Gibbons was interested. In fact, he wanted to meet with Seaman that very afternoon. “I’d no more thought about television and here I had to come up with some ideas and present them in just a few hours,” Seaman says.

“So, I go in there and I told him I wanted something that looked like a home. I wanted to have a den, and a kitchen and a little area where we could bring animals in and teach the children about them,” says Seaman. “And he said, ‘I can do that for you,’”

“Rosie’s Place” went on the air in 1974 and just two years later the show earned The Alabama Arts and Humanities Award for best TV series in the state. Seaman produced and hosted the show for ten years and then she went on to produce even more children’s programming for WKRG including Small Fry News and Youth Magazine.  Somewhere she found the time to write books for children, too. 

“Now Small Fry News was just precious,” says Seaman. “The kids were the anchors and reporters, and we went throughout the Gulf Coast doing the news. It was very hard to do because I wanted to include all the children.”

Seaman’s efforts to show diversity in Small Fry News caught the attention of a national magazine. “Yes, the ‘Ladies Home Journal’ called me and told me that I was the only television program that had African American children on it,” says Seaman. “I didn’t realize that was the case, but I thought those kids had the right to be invited onto the show, too.”

 “Rosie was very committed to making sure that children’s issues were sort of front and center in our community,” says Virginia Guy, executive director of the Drug and Education Council. “She did that through the power of television and she understood the market and the audience.  She brought her viewers the different services available for children and families in our community.”

Seaman served in more of a behind-the-scenes capacity later in her career.  She produced Page 5, We Are Mobile and Mark your Calendar, plus she was the producer for WKRG’s morning and midday news programs.

John Nodar, WKRG’s meteorologist, worked with Seaman on many of the shows. He says she really had an impact within the local political arena.  “People trust her – especially political heavy-hitters have trusted her over the years,” says Nodar. “I’m talking mayors and candidates for governor and congressmen and senators. They trust Rosie. And some of these folks actually come to her for advice.”

“Our relationship now has a completely different nature,” says Guy, “but I still go to her when I’m needing some trusted advice. She has a good heart; a gentle spirit and she just lives out her faith daily.”

“I think everything that happened to me was meant to happen to me,” says Seaman. “For instance, the three men that I worked for were the most powerful men at the time. The way things just happened with me being on TV, and writing 13 books, and how we achieved things for children. I was really meant to do it.”