The National Weather Service Remembers Jim Giles

Even competitors looked up to Jim Giles, and everyone admired his expertise and professionalism, both on and off the air.<br/> <br/>Dick Faurot knew Jim as a colleague and co-worker for 12Â½ years. He

Friday, December 22nd 2006, 2:11 pm

By: News On 6

Even competitors looked up to Jim Giles, and everyone admired his expertise and professionalism, both on and off the air.

Dick Faurot knew Jim as a colleague and co-worker for 12Â½ years. He shows us how the weather community is mourning the loss.

It takes a special talent to become an Oklahoma icon, and it doesn't hurt to have a heart of gold. Jim's love of the science of meteorology was evident, both to those he taught, and to colleagues who just picked up a tip or two along the way.

"And we watched Jim and we saw every time he said, 'Our friends at the National Weather Service' and we would smile and we appreciated that," said Steve Piltz with the National Weather Service.

Meteorologist Steve Piltz just has to look at weather models and create forecasts. He says Jim also had to make a connection with viewers, and communicate the information when people needed it most.

Jim wanted his friends at home to have the best data possible, and silenced critics' questions with a new style of weather broadcasting.

"Could you operate a computer program while on the air and make it look smooth and make it look authoritative and still provide good information? And he showed us you could do that, and of course, that's the mainstay now for a lot of broadcast meteorologists," Piltz said. "He showed that you could be scientific and still be entertaining and still be a friend."

Piltz says the last time he saw his friend, Jim gave him a little extra squeeze on the back of the neck as he said goodbye.

"There will be a lot of good folks that do a lot of good things, and Jim set the stage for a lot of it and for all of the folks who are currently in the area, I know that they all can call him friend. We did," said Piltz.
The legacy of Jim's contributions to the field of meteorology will live on at OU, where a classroom in their new weather building has been named in his honor.