ACADIANA LIFE
DARLA MONTGOMERY
[ THEN AND NOW ] Darla being Darla, however, means the conversation turns toward someone else,
By Scott Brazda
always the blessings she witnesses in other people, which leads us to the aforementioned
The first question, I’ll admit, was a bit of a set-up and, had
NOVEMBER 2009
“Naturally, we will forever have this special
the response been negative, I
bond because of my medical emergency,”
probably wouldn’t have included
explains Montgomery. “But Chuck’s latest chapter is amazing, too: For years I had
it in this article. “Who is your favorite and whom do you consider to be the most-talented co-anchor you’ve ever had?” Luckily for my ego, Darla Montgomery played along. “You must be talking about
Chuck Huebner.
prayed he’d have a child, because I knew
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Scott Brazda. Handsome, well-spoken, broadcasting and community icon…” Then the laughter kicked in from both sides, and the actual Then & Now interview began. Montgomery appeared on the cover of FACE Magazine in November 2009, roughly a year and a half after a brain aneurysm brought her world to a screeching halt…right on the news set of KLFY-TV. Her heart stopped beating for over four minutes. “I’ve experienced a number of flashbacks about that day, and I recall this feeling of looking down and seeing what (her KLFY co-anchor) Chuck
he’d be a great father, and now it’s happened. He’s married, a consultant and a fabulous stay-at-home dad. I can’t tell you how happy I am for him.” We begin to talk “shop” — Darla’s TV career began in 1992, only a couple years after mine — and there comes the realization
that she is not the eager young reporter she once was. Now, she’s the established, veteran anchor with over 25 years’ experience. “Oh, my gosh, when did this happen?” she laughs. But that doesn’t mean she has all the answers. “You can never stop learning, because if you do, you limit yourself. A good journalist always carries the integrity bucket wherever she or he goes,” she said.
Huebner was doing to me, talking to me and keeping me going. I see it,
Corporate America has become a bigger player in broadcasting (“They’ve
I feel it, and it took a number of months for some of those memories to
invaded and want to do a lot more with a lot less,” she concedes), but the
manifest themselves,” she said.
news of the day, she reminds us, is still always right there in front of us.
One such memory was that of being in intense pain, and she recalls being
“Many sources come through social media, but it still has to be confirmed
in a dark room. “My father came in, kissed me on the cheek and said, ‘let
and checked out. We still need to nurture our sources, ask everything that
me go first’.” That memory flash came three or four years ago, just before
needs to be asked and not go off half-cocked,” Darla says.
her father died.
And when it comes to the ever-growing use of technology and social
The aneurysm has left its physical scars; Montgomery lost her senses of
media? “While the tech is good, it shouldn’t affect the quality of your
smell and taste, “…but not my taste for life, and an unending and perhaps
work. You still have to ask the tough questions, you still have to keep the
increased appetite to savor every minute, to soak everything in. There are
politicians honest. We still have a responsibility to respect the nature of
no bad days, just days with more challenges than others.”
the story.”
18 FACE | APRIL- MAY 2018