Shara Fryer is an Emmy Award-winning journalist and mainstay of Houston broadcasting for more than 30 years. As the anchor of ABC13, she garnered statewide, national and even international recognition for stepping outside the anchor desk for inside accounts with the top newsmakers, on the top issues of the day. But she always made the time to report on the arts and the institutions that make Houston the home of her heart.
As a child in Hallettsville, Texas, Shara learned the importance of community, influencing her lifelong professional and personal commitments.
She first gave her voice, her time, her stage presence to causes far and wide … from Child Advocates, ESCAPE Center, United Way, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, to Houston Grand Opera, Houston Symphony, Consular Ball, Heritage Society, and 100Club. It expanded, with her husband Barry Silverman, to chairing events, such as the March of Dimes Dinner and the CCFA Winter Ball. Shara is a volunteer and Lifetime member of the International Committee of the Houston Livestock Show, past chairman and continuing Director of the World Affairs Council of Houston, a board member of the Japan American Society of Houston, a board member of the Retina Research Foundation, a Fellow of the American Leadership Forum, an alumni of the FBI Citizens Academy, and on the advisory board of the National Parks Photography Project.
A cancer survivor, she devotes much of her time to various cancer outreach programs and established the Shara Fryer Cancer Research Fund in the Department of Surgical Oncology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
She is a Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International, has been honored as a CCFA Woman of Distinction, received the Ben and Julie Rogers Ecumenism Award from the Anti-Defamation League of Houston, the Community Builder Award from the Grand Masonic Lodge of Houston, and has been recognized by the governments of Japan and Israel for her efforts toward international goodwill.
Now on Houston’s Morning News at KTRH 740AM, Shara maintains an active speaking and appearance schedule and is a 2013 Hall of Fame inductee into the Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce.