Spoiler : The spelling of this individual here would be Pat *Connell*, the first African-American to have been hired by a major network as a staff announcer (by CBS, in 1961 [Jet, March 16, 1961], one year after he was initially hired by them [in April 1960, per Billboard, April 4, 1960] as a summer-replacement fill-in). Before that, he had been a disc jockey for WNJR in Newark, NJ, where he went by the handle "Pat the Cat." A licensed pilot, he later owned an aircraft and was spotlighted along with other black pilots in an article, "Can A Black Man Fly?," in the July 1969 issue of Flying magazine.