Broadcaster Bill Bolen looks back at a 50-year career

Strangers often stop to say hi to Bill Bolen when he is out shopping.

“I’m always happy to talk with folks,” said the former newscaster. “I appreciate the fact that they watched me all those years.”

Bolen spent nearly 50 years delivering the morning news until his retirement in 2011. Now the Mountain Brook resident said he misses the news business but is happy to get to sleep a little later in the morning.

A member and deacon at Brookwood Baptist Church, Bolen is quick to cite the leadership of God in his broadcasting career.

Bolen grew up in Selma and said he professed faith in Christ on Easter Sunday in 1940. His best friend in high school became a pastor, but Bolen never sensed that God wanted him to be a preacher, too. 

While working at the local Sears and Roebuck as a teenager, Bolen became fascinated with the radio repair shop. After hearing him use one of the early wire recorders in the shop, a coworker asked if Bolen had ever considered a radio career. Bolen applied to Selma radio station WHBB and worked there until he enrolled in the School of Radio Arts at The University of Alabama.

After graduation, he served two years in the U.S. Air Force in Yuma, Ariz., writing press releases and meeting with the media for the Department of Information Services. 

While in the Air Force, he married Vivian Killebrew of Anniston, whom he had met at The University of Alabama. Together they raised a son and three daughters, who all graduated from Mountain Brook High School.

Following his enlistment, Bolen returned to Alabama, working at radio station WSGN. When Birmingham added a third television station in 1965, he started at WBMG TV as news director and chief anchor. 

The city’s First Baptist Church, where he held membership, purchased airtime and asked Bolen to host “Religion in the News” each week. He moved to WBRC TV two years later, where he hosted a weekly 30-minute religious newscast, and later hosted a monthly religious discussion program. He produced and hosted these programs for 22 years. 

Bolen’s broadcast work brought about a number of speaking engagements as well as invitations from the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board (now the International Mission Board) and the Florida Baptist Convention to help with missions teleconferences.   

“It began to dawn on me,” he said, “that some 20 years after I came back to Birmingham, I was really beginning to do what I had felt the Lord leading me into years before.”

Current Brookwood Baptist pastor Jim Barnette said the first time he visited the church on a Wednesday night, Bill and Vivian Bolen were behind the counter serving the evening meal.

“That spoke volumes to me that this premier news anchor was willing to be a servant,” Barnette said. “Bill has shown this servant’s heart on countless mission trips as well.”

Vivian Bolen died in June 2011, six months after Bolen’s retirement from FOX6 WBRC. Now 85, Bolen enjoys time with his children, who all live in the Birmingham metro area, and 10 grandchildren. He’s also active in the Shades Valley Rotary Club.

The University of Alabama will induct Bolen into the School of Communication and Information Sciences Hall of Fame in October.