Scott Pelley

With his immaculate gray locks, stentorian jaw and preference for dark tailored suits, Scott Pelley could have been mistaken for a political dynamo but the Texas native and long-time CBS correspondent was a professional journalist before he graduated from high school. Utilizing a winning combination of nerve, determination and quality reporting, Pelley jumped from a reporter's job at the Dallas affiliate of ABC News to a coveted correspondent's position with CBS in 1989. The following year, Pelley flew to the Middle East to cover the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and a decade later was broadcasting live from the rubble-strewn site of the World Trade Center's collapsing Twin Towers on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. A multiple Emmy Award winner for his coverage of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, as well as for his controversial 2009 interview with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Pelley also served for three years as the CBS White House correspondent, where the impeachment proceedings for then-President Bill Clinton were initiated on his watch. A correspondent for "60 Minutes" (CBS, 1968- ) since 2003, Pelley's confrontational questioning style marked him as an heir to the retired Mike Wallace. A field-tested newsman in the tradition of Walter Cronkite and his CBS mentor Dan Rather, Pelley was chosen to assume the "CBS Evening News" anchor chair vacated by Katie Couric in April 2011, a post he held until May 2017, when he was replaced by Anthony Mason.