Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday at the North Virginia Street Church of Christ, 6840 N.
Internment will be at Rest Hills in Sherwood, Ark. Contributions may be made to the North Virginia Street Church of Christ or to Central Arkansas Christian School, #1 Windsong Drive, North Little Rock, AR 72113. Tony Shelton, a longtime Reno television meteorologist who suffered from a mysterious illness for three years after a surfing accident, died Sunday at age 50.
Shelton worked at KRNV-TV News 4 from 1996 to early 2005, when he left due to his illness. "We got to know his family," News 4 news director Jon Killoran said Wednesday. "His daughter, Jaime, was part of the coat drive Tony did every year.
So everybody here that knew him and loved working with him is definitely thinking of (his wife) Carry and the kids and his parents. "I worked with Tony 10 years and knew him to be a very dedicated and passionate weather forecaster and tremendously proud of being one of the pioneers to bring weather information to the Internet. It's tough when somebody you worked with so long and respected so long is gone.
" While surfing in January 2003, Shelton was flipped by a wave and slammed into the ocean floor off Hawaii. He said he suffered uncontrollable shaking that lasted two to three hours after the incident. "It's like I'm freezing to death," he said.
"I can be warm on the outside, but freezing on the inside." Shelton was hospitalized for nine months at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center, returning to work in February 2004. "I'm working through the illness," Shelton said then.
"I'm not healed yet. I may be 50 percent there, or maybe more." During Shelton's time at Saint Mary's, he received 3,400 e-mail messages from folks wishing him well.
"It shows the following he's amassed over the years," Killoran said. "When somebody like that leaves, if feels like you lost something that's part of you." Shelton had said the experience gave him new perspective.
"I understand now what it's like to be alone," Shelton said. "When I knew I was going to be here for a while, I really started to realize what was truly important." In September 1987, Shelton became chief meteorologist for KOLO-TV in Reno.
He left to develop real-time weather information systems on the Internet. After receiving a patent for the technology in 1996, he became the chief meteorologist for News 4. He also worked at KOAM-TV in Pittsburgh, Kan.
, WRCB-TV in Chattanooga, Tenn. and KOTV-TV in Tulsa, Okla. He graduated from McKinney (Texas) High School in 1974, North Texas State University and Southwest Texas State University.
He married Carry Ann Randle in 1984 in Sherwood, Ark. Shelton; mother Ruth Helen Tarkington Shelton; brothers Paul and John; three nephews and two nieces. Back one page Email a friend Printer friendly version Try home delivery of the Reno Gazette-Journal get your FREE 20% off dining card.
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