NEWS STORY CHANGED ONE RADIO REPORTER
The Cincinnati Post, Cincinnati, OH - May 14, 1990

           The radio station had told him to paint a picture in words, to
describe the horror, confusion, and pain of that May night near Carrollton,
Ky., when 24 children and three adults died in a fiery bus crash. It was 1988,
the day after the May 14 crash. Gregg Anderson, a reporter for WKRC
Radio, shot
his questions along with the reporting throng grilling Don Tennison - the
minister whose church in Radcliff had sponsored the teen trip to Kings Island
that turned to  tragedy. The forum was question-answer:

           How many were on the bus?

           Where were they from?

           How old was the bus?

           How much did it cost? Was it safe?

           Among the sounds of cool professionalism, Anderson's voice broke in
with sudden tenderness: How can you minister to people like this? What can you
tell them that's going to help?"
           Tennison's voice shook as he answered: "You have to love them and
encourage them, and let them know that we're all hurting. And even God's
hurting."
           Anderson had started hurting long before he went to Carrollton to
cover that bus crash. Two years before, he had been fired as a news director
for Storer cable. He was being sued by a fellow news professional. He had
broken up with his longtime girlfriend. He had financial problems. By the time
he got to Carrollton, Anderson was actively looking to God for answers.
           Maybe that's why fellow news people weren't surprised when somewhere
between his interviews with medical examiners and ministers in
Carrollton Gregg
Anderson decided to put down his tape recorder and pick up a Bible.
           The 36 year old former news reporter from Highland Heights completed
his first crusade this month an eight-day revival in Miller, Mo.
           On June 10, Anderson will be ordained as an evangelist of the
Evangelical Church Alliance, at 2:30 p.m. at the Christian Tabernacle in
Newport.
           His conversion wasn't overnight. However, he remembers the moment
when his direction changed.
           He had completed most of his crash interviews, had the color, and
details his editor wanted. One official had told him the fire in the bus was
like a napalm bomb. The heat was so intense, some of the kids melted into the
seats.
           As he was waiting for his cue to broadcast, a woman came into the
hotel lobby to use the phone. "She was distraught, broken hearted," Anderson
said. "I was moved with compassion. I remember I said, 'God, what can I do?'"
He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder.  "She gained her composure. I
heard her tell the lady she was talking to, 'There's a reporter next to
me. And
he's a Christian.' She said she could feel God's love coming through my hand."

           Anderson gave his news report on cue. He used the graphic
description. He finished the job. However, having the right words and the
breaking story didn't seem important anymore.
           "When I got back, some doors started closing for me,"
Anderson said. He covered a few small stories. He had a hard time
finding news jobs.   He said
he recognizes it now as God's way of pushing him in a new direction.   He
became a sales representative for the Wildwood Inn in Florence and talked with
local ministers about his growing need to share what he saw as God's comfort.
Last August he took graduate courses in pastoral counseling at the Assemblies
of God Thelogical Seminary in Springfield, Mo.
           Rev. Harold Brown of the Highland Chapel Free Methodist Church in
Miller called Anderson's recent revival exciting and sincere. "He's a
Christian
in process," Rev. Brown said. "In the last four months, he's grown more
than any
Christian I've known. He has victories in some real major areas in his life."
His personal troubles have helped him understand others, Rev. Brown said.
Anderson calls himself a "reporter of the Good News of Jesus Christ."

           He moved home with his parents in Highland Heights and operates his
new 70x7 Evangelistic Ministry there. "That's part of the sacrifice, moving
back home, living a lower life style, not hob-nobbing with the governors and
athletes," Anderson said.  "It used to be when I was on the street
people would
recognize me, say 'Hey, there's Gregg.'

           "The glory goes to God now not because I broke a good story for
Storer or WKRC, but because God loves me.  "This is the best time of my life,"
he said. "It's like having an exclusive."
           Anderson saved the tape of the Carrollton interviews. Among them he
asks the assistant pastor of the Assembly of God Church in Carrollton how he
could say God will bring something good out of such a terrible event.
           "God will take a tragedy," Rev. Charles Harmon told him in that
interview two years ago. "Souls could be saved out of that tragedy.
Lives could
be changed."

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Byron Crawford: Carrollton crash turned man to ministry
The Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY   May 11, 2008

The Rev. Gregg W. Anderson marks the chapters in his life as having occurred
before and after the Carrollton bus crash, 20 years ago this week. He was then
working as a news and sports reporter for WKRC Radio in Cincinnati and was
among the many journalists sent to cover the tragedy.

Larry Mahoney, a drunken driver, was headed the wrong direction in his pickup
truck on Interstate 71 the night of May 14, 1988, when he collided with a
church bus carrying 67 mostly teenage passengers. They were members of a youth
group from the First Assembly of God in Radcliff, Ky., returning home from a
trip to Kings Island in Ohio.

None of the passengers was seriously injured by the impact, but the bus' front
door was jammed by the crash and its gas tank ruptured and burst into flames.
Twenty-seven passengers died and 34 were injured. Mahoney's injuries were
minor.

"I was literally crying on the way down there," recalled Anderson, a native of
Highland Heights, Ky. "God used that situation to get my attention . so by the
time I got to Carrollton, I could actually see and feel and sense the changes
that were going on in my life."

Anderson had covered other tragedies with heavy loss of life, but for
reasons he
has never fully understood, his work on the Carrollton crash brought a
personal
spiritual transformation that would change the course of his life's work.

Soon after he finished reporting on the crash, Anderson told his news director
he felt he was being called to the ministry.

He studied religion, became an ordained minister and began a series of
evangelistic spiritual renewal meetings.

He traveled to Latvia as part of a prison ministry, helping train prison
chaplains. He served as chaplain at the Kentucky State Penitentiary in
Eddyville for 2 ½ years and as a chaplain and life coach at a Christian school
in Utah.

He recently accepted a position as a teacher and chaplain at Evangel Christian
School in Louisville.

Evangel Superintendent Roger Hoagland called Anderson an outstanding
addition to
the faculty, and said he has been impressed with how well Anderson relates to
students.

"He has shared many of his life experiences involving the Latvia prison
ministry, professional sports (which he covered) and also somewhat about the
bus tragedy," Hoagland said.

Nearing the 20th anniversary of the crash, Anderson recalled the pain he felt
for the families and friends of those killed as he stood outside the
counseling
room set up in Carrollton after the accident. He remembered details of the
trial, and how he had approached Mahoney one day asking for a comment when the
defendant was being led to the courtroom from a state police cruiser.

"I said, 'Larry, what do you think about all this?' "

"He looked me straight in the eye and didn't say a word, but in his
eyes I could
read -- 'Here I am. I've committed this horrible crash, and you want a comment
from me?'

"I could see a broken-hearted man. There was no life in Larry Mahoney. . . .
Praying for Larry would be more important to me now than ever getting an
interview with him."