Jim Bohannon
SYNDICATED RADIO HOST
“One of the 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America.”
—Talkers Magazine
Jim Bohannon was one of the most influential talk radio hosts in the country. He had a significant impact through his syndicated radio show and is often referred to as the man who succeeded Larry King.
His larger-than-life persona started in a much more humble manner, growing up as just a regular kid in the Missouri Ozarks.
THE EARLY YEARS
Jim Bohannon was born on January 7, 1944, in Corvallis, Oregon. He was just a few months old when his family moved to Lebanon, Missouri. Bohannon spent the rest of his childhood there and graduated from Lebanon High School in 1962. After graduation, he moved 45 minutes away to attend college at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield.
Bohannon took an early interest in broadcasting. He picked up his first on-air job in 1960 at the age of sixteen at his hometown radio station KLWT-AM. During his college years at SMSU, he honed his skills as a disc jockey at KICK radio and as a news reporter at KWTO-AM.
After finishing college, he shipped off to Vietnam where he spent one year with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade. Upon completion of his duties, the U.S. Army sent him back to Washington, D.C., where he launched a career asking questions in our nation’s capital.
RISE TO FAME
Soon after Bohannon returned to the United States, he took a position at WGAY radio station. The fit, though, was odd because the station played easy listening music. His news interests eventually pulled him away from the music format and back into talk radio when he landed reporting jobs at news radio stations WTOP and WRC.
In 1980, he packed his bags and headed to Chicago for a morning show at WCFL. The high-profile job expanded his exposure. Even that wasn’t enough to keep him content. He picked up a side job in the afternoons at CNN’s Chicago bureau. He filed stories to be seen around the country. The exposure he received from those two positions in the third-largest media market in the country set the stage for his next big move.
Three years after moving to Chicago, he took a job as a reporter with the Mutual Broadcasting Network. That network just happened to carry the world-famous Larry King Radio Show. Bohannon made such a positive impact on the listeners that he was named the fill-in host when King was gone. People around the country were beginning to know the name Jim Bohannon. He got his own syndicated show in 1993 when Westwood One bought out Mutual and moved Larry King to a daytime position. That opened the door for the Jim Bohannon Show.
SHOW ME SUCCESS
The Jim Bohannon Show was an immediate success. Millions of listeners related to his easygoing manner and intelligent political discussions. Never one to rest on his success, he picked up additional hosting duties for a daily news magazine at Westwood One and a weekly feature radio show as well.
In addition to his legions of listeners and fans, the awards and honors were starting to rack up. He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago and put on the Wall of Honor in his hometown of Lebanon. Topping things off, Bohannon was inducted into the national Radio Hall of Fame in 2003.
Despite his worldwide success, Bohannon made southwest Missouri a part of his life until his death in 2022 at the age of 78.. He took the unprecedented step of broadcasting his syndicated show from the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds in Springfield, giving the area additional national exposure. In fact, this small-town Missouri boy saw such exponential growth of his program that the Jim Bohannon Show ranked as the fifth most listened-to talk program in the country!
EXTRA, EXTRA!
- Bohannon was nominated for the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Radio Award for the Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.
- Jim is a specialty voice announcer on CBS’s Face the Nation.
- Bohannon and his wife, Annabelle, went to high school together but didn’t see each other again for 33 years. They “re-met” at a book signing in Columbia, Missouri, and married a few years later.
