A Leelanau legend was lost this past week as Scott Craig, 89, passed away leaving the legacy of a storyteller.
Craig, a retired television producer and award-winning documentary filmmaker for CBS, NBC, PBS, Turner Broadcasting and HGTV, died on Thursday April 18.
His daughters Jennifer Knight and Amy Coleman, along with his wife Carol Bawden were there for the final moments.
“Scott went into Munson on Tuesday morning with abdominal pain, and they discovered so much wrong. Multi-organ failure... without hope of survival. Sadly, welostScottlastnight. Itwasveryfast. We removed all the life support he was on, and he drifted quickly and peacefully away with his daughters and me at his side. He is in a better place now,” Bawden said in a Facebook post.
Bawden continued saying that Scott was preparing for the future. He was preparing for the upcoming Suttons Bay-Leelanau County Rotary Club’s Owen Bahle Awards dinner May 3.
Craig was the originator of the “Bahle Award” and the master of ceremonies.
A celebration of Scott’s life will happen on his 90th birthday on Monday, June 24 at 4 p.m.
Craig was a great storyteller who published several recording in “THE STORY NEXT DOOR SERIES” where he would tell stories about the extraordinary lives of people up north.
Scott released a book in 2020 called “Laughing In Leelanau, Or I Swear It’s True.”
Craig grew up in Wooster, Ohio, and attended The College of Wooster, according to his obituary.
Craig broke into the media industry as a disc jockey in the late 1950s. Eventually, Craig earned his master’s and Ph.D from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and would up taking a job with CBS WCIATV in 1959.
That’s where he would refine his documentary skills covering education. Scott became a produce at WBBM-TC, CBS 2, and later moved to NBC for 10 years, before returning as a CBS executive producer in 1975. He also founded his own production company in Chicago in 1975.
Craig will be remembered as producing some of the station’s most memorable and celebrated documentaries and special reports for CBS.
Craig won more than 100 awards during his long career including a National Emmy and 32 Chicago Emmys. Craig holds the most Emmys over any other individual in Chicago television history. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle in 1997.
Craig eventually left the big city and moved to Leland where he began hostign a radio program “The Story Next Door.” He went on to publish a book of the people’s tales.
The industry runs in the blood as his daughter Amy Coleman is a former supervising producer at “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in Chicago for 17 years, and also served as the executive producer and showrunner for “The Jeff Probst Show.”
