By Jane Keller Gordon, Contributing Writer
Northborough – Northborough-native Chris Conte, 29, credits Algonquin Regional High School, especially his English teacher Tom Alera, with contributing to his success as a television reporter. Conte is currently a general assignment reporter for a CBS affiliate in Nashville, Tenn., and has won an Edward R. Murrow Award for writing, an Upper Midwest Emmy, and 10 Mid-South Regional Emmy awards. And his career has just begun.
Before graduating from Algonquin in 2005, he attended Lincoln Elementary School and the Robert E. Melican Middle School. Conte said that as a child, he was glued to local news, especially on snow days.
“I was infatuated with the WBZ news,” he said.
“(Chris) has always had a very knowing and focused look in his eyes and has shown great powers of observation and connection with all ages of people he meets,” said Conte’s mother Mary Ann. “[When he was in preschool] he was content to follow the director and teachers around and tell them stories about his family.”
At Algonquin, Conte was president of his sophomore, junior and senior classes, which helped him become a leader and motivator. Looking back, Conte said that he gained confidence by speaking in front of his classmates, and also singing in Algonquin’s musicals and statewide voice competitions.
Conte said that Alera, who taught him English his junior and senior years, helped him hone his skills as a writer.
“He was always pushing me to be a better writer, and to appreciate the art of writing… He showed me how powerful writing can be,” Conte commented.
He made sure to share his success with those that inspired him.
“After I won my first Emmy I went to Algonquin to see Tom Alera and a couple of other teachers… I try to visit the school once a year,” Conte noted.
Conte graduated from Boston University (BU) in 2009 as a broadcast journalism major, and political science minor. While at BU he wrote for the college newspaper, and was elected captain of the school’s ski team. During this time, he produced a film on Southborough sisters Shauna and Meghan Murphy, who tragically died in a car accident in 2009.
Outside of school, Conte earned the Eagle Scout ranking in 2005. He is a gifted skier, and has run eight marathons, including six in Boston. In 2013, he crossed the finish line of the Boston Marathon just after the bombs exploded.
Conte’s first reporting job, at the age of 22, was in Rochester, Minn., with an NBC affiliate, KTTC TV. There he won a regional Emmy for reporting on historic floods and tornados.
Conte’s investigative reporting has blossomed at CBS’s WTVF NewsChannel 5 in Tennessee. His reports on the rape trial of two former Vanderbilt University students, arrests relating to Holly Bobo, a missing nursing student, and a meningitis outbreak have received national attention.
Said Conte: “I think in an age when people are focused on clicks and flashes that what really catches people’s attention and makes them care is when we tell stories, and we tell them well.”
