Three longtime veterans of the New Orleans press corps will be inducted into
the Press Box Hall of Fame at Fair Grounds during ceremonies to be held
following the races on March 12.
New Orleans natives Glenn Gremillion, who started with the Fair Grounds
television department in 1972; A.J. Paretti, who began his Fair Grounds career
as a chart maker in 1991 for Daily Racing Form; and track photographer
Lou Hodges Jr., who joined his track photographer-father in a professional
capacity in 1976, will become the three latest Press Box Hall of Fame members
during ceremonies in the Black Gold Room.
Those three, all sexagenarians now but with childhood memories at the local
oval, will be honored as part of a dual ceremony to be held in conjunction with
this year’s latest additions to the Fair Grounds Hall of Fame, which honors
owners, trainers, jockeys and horses that have played a significant role in
local racing lore.
The historic Fair Grounds, considered to be the third-oldest race course in
the nation, was one of the first to honor the human and equine stalwarts who
raced here but also the first to honor those who have contributed significantly
to media coverage of Fair Grounds and Thoroughbred racing in New Orleans with a
Press Box Hall of Fame.
Those who will be inducted into the Fair Grounds Hall of Fame, which
currently has 124 members, are expected to be announced later this month, but
Gremillion, Paretti and Hodges will expand the list of Press Box Hall of Fame
members to 34.
Glenn Gremillion started his professional career at Fair Grounds in November
of 1972 as a cameraman on the front tower for Galjour Electronics but quickly
graduated to the pan camera, fulfilling those duties for Galjour not only here
but also at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky, and at River Downs in Cincinnati,
Ohio. Those three tracks were his regular circuit for most of his career but he
also worked for a time at Turfway Park, Kentucky Downs, Evangeline Downs,
Jefferson Downs, Lone Star Park, Remington Park and helped set up the TV
operation at Delta Downs.
“Working in a television department at any racetrack always involves a team
effort,” said Gremillion, who now lives in Lexington and works year-round at
Keeneland running that track’s HD operation during the race meets as well as
Keeneland’s various annual sales.
“When I first started at Fair Grounds, Gaston Galjour was my boss and my
mentor but our team effort also involved people like Mark Segreto and Scott
Mulkey, who still run the operation at Fair Grounds,” Gremillion said. “Even
though Gaston is retired and I’m now based in Lexington, Mark and Scott and I
are all still on the phone almost every day helping each other out with our
various challenges. All of us are still a team.”
A J. Paretti started coming to the Fair Grounds “with my Daddy when I was
eight or nine years old,” he recalled fondly. “I first got involved
professionally at Fair Grounds in 1976, but I first came here to work in 1991
for Daily Racing Form as a call taker and then moved on to Evangeline. In
1992, I became a trackman at Jefferson Downs and started calling the charts at
Fair Grounds in 1993 shortly before the fire. My teletype operators were Marge
and Jim Turnbull. They were the last two people out of the building that night.
“Racing was a lot more fun in those days,” said Paretti, who soon became one
of the most respected trackmen in the nation whose daily racing charts were
studied religiously by local handicappers. “It was a job you loved and you
always wanted to be here. However, I moved to Opelousas, Louisiana, after
Hurricane Katrina and the job started to involve too much traveling. It was too
much of a grind. I retired from Equibase March 28, 2010, but if it wasn’t for
Katrina I’d probably still be working there at Fair Grounds. I’m honored to be
going into the Press Box Hall of Fame with Glenn and Lou. We’ve all worked
together here at Fair Grounds and the other tracks around Louisiana most of our
adult lives.”
Lou Hodges Jr., who has also served as a track photographer at Rockingham
Park, Arlington Park, Washington Park and Louisiana Downs, will become part of
the first father-son Press Box Hall of Fame tandem at Fair Grounds when he is
inducted to join his late former track photographer father Lou Hodges Sr.
“I took my first pictures here at Fair Grounds with an old Speed Graphic
camera my father gave me as a 12-year-old,” Hodges said. “My father was a
veteran of the Army Air Corps during World War II who started working here in
about 1960 under a man named Jack Blythe. When that man retired my father became
the track photographer. I joined him here in 1976. Almost every day one of these
old timers that have been coming here forever will come up to me and say ‘Man,
you been around here a real long time — almost as long as I’ve been coming
here.'”
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