Gary Bass

Digital Content Producer

Gary Bass grew up in Athens, Texas, where he graduated from high school. He played football for the Athens Hornets.

He started his college career at Texas A&M University in College Station, and he finished up his bachelor’s degree in journalism at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches in May of 1997.

Shortly afterward, he started working as a staff writer for the Athens Review and the Cedar Creek Pilot. He covered the county and Cedar Creek Lake beats, but he also covered sports and filled in as sports editor on occasion. While there, he won numerous awards for news and column writing, and he covered the execution of the infamous Betty Beets.

In 2000, he started working as a staff writer for the Lufkin Daily News in Lufkin, Texas. While there, he covered the business, education, and politics beats and was a co-winner of several awards. He also helped with the newspaper’s coverage of the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy and did several interviews with death row inmates.

Gary and his family moved to California in March of 2006, and he worked as a substitute teacher while he was there. Then in the summer of 2007, he and his family got the opportunity to move back to East Texas. Gary was very tempted to kiss the ground when the family’s two-car caravan crossed the New Mexico-Texas border.

After he moved back to Texas, Gary enrolled in graduate school at SFA, where he earned his teaching certification and then graduated with a master’s degree in English in 2012.

While he was in graduate school, Gary worked as an adjunct English instructor at Angelina College, a freelance magazine writer, and an employee at a barbecue restaurant.

Gary started working as a web content producer for KTRE in September of 2012, and he moved up to work in the KLTV newsroom in December of 2018.

Gary, who is a father of two children and a granddad, enjoys spending time with his family, working out, going to movies, reading, writing, and going to church when he is not working as a web content producer.