Camille Bohannon is an American
broadcaster who spent four decades in radio, including working as an anchor/reporter for the U.S. national news networks of
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
,
Mutual,
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ce ...
and AP Broadcast. After retiring in 2008, she continued to work part-time as a voice-over and narrator announcer. She has also served as a member of the Broadcast Committee of the U.S.
National Press Club
A press club is an organization for journalists and others who are professionally engaged in the production and dissemination of news. A press club whose membership is defined by the press of a given country may be known as a National Press Club ...
.
Early life
Born Mary Camille Skora, Bohannon was the only child of Lillian Marie and George W. Skora. As the daughter of a State Department foreign service employee, she lived in eight countries and learned to speak four languages. She graduated ''cum laude'' in 1968 from
Highlands University
New Mexico Highlands University (NMHU or Highlands) is a public university in Las Vegas, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1893, it has satellite campuses in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Farmington and Roswell. NMHU has an average a ...
in
Las Vegas, New Mexico
Las Vegas, often known simply as Vegas, is a city in and the county seat of San Miguel County, New Mexico, United States. Once two separate municipalities (one a city and the other a town), both were named Las Vegas: West Las Vegas ("Old Town" ...
, where she was named "Woman of the Year".
["Skora-Bohannon recite vows in Silver Spring, Md. church", ''Las Vegas (New Mexico) Daily Optic'', December 15, 1970, page 3.] In 2008 the university recognized her as a "distinguished alumna".
Radio career
Bohannon first became involved in broadcasting by chance. At Highlands she studied language and political science, with the general idea of following her father into foreign service work. However, she was asked to provide commentary about the university's homecoming parade by the local cable TV company's CATV-Channel 2, which evolved into a daily news program that was also carried by local radio station
KFUN, which later hired her as a disc jockey.
["Breakthrough For Women", ''Washington (D. C.) Evening Star'', January 7, 1973, page G-3.]
After moving to the Washington, D. C. area, in 1970 she began working at a series of regional radio stations, beginning with the overnight program at
WHFS, a suburban Maryland outlet. After that station changed to fulltime rock programming, she moved to weekend shifts at
WETA and
WWDC
The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...
.
[ In 1976 she and then-husband ]Jim Bohannon
James Everett Bohannon (January 7, 1944 – November 12, 2022) was an American broadcaster who worked in television and radio and hosted the nationally syndicated late night radio talk show ''The Jim Bohannon Show'' originally broadcast on the ...
began hosting radio station WTOP WTOP may refer to:
Radio stations
*WTOP-FM 103.5 FM, a radio station in Washington, D.C.
*WHUR-FM 96.3 FM, a radio station licensed to Washington, D.C. that held the WTOP-FM call letters from 1949 until 1971
*WFED 1500 AM, a radio station licensed ...
's morning program. However, the station owner did not want the show to be labeled as a "husband and wife team", so Camille had to adopt the pseudonym of "Laura Walters".["Radio has Always been Fun for Club member Camille Bohannon"]
by Bill McCloskey, May 22, 2016 (press.org) The next year the two moved to middays at WRC
WRC may refer to:
Broadcasting stations
* WRC-TV, a television station (virtual channel 4, digital channel 34) licensed to Washington, D.C., United States
* Several radio stations in the Washington, D.C. area:
** WWRC, a radio station (570 AM) l ...
, with Camille now allowed to use her own name.
In 1980 the pair left D.C. to work mornings at WCFL in Chicago. At the time of the move Camille was quoted as saying: "People ask how we can be together so much, but my answer is that we're making up for the first five years when I was a DJ at night and Jim did news during the day and we never saw each other." However, the couple eventually divorced.
Camille Bohannon later moved back to the Washington, D.C. area, where she generally continued to use her married name, while sometimes broadcasting using the pseudonym "Ann Taylor". During the rest of her career she primarily worked in a series of national radio network news positions. In late 1983, she joined the United Press International Radio Network as an anchor. In 1987 she became a part-time anchor at Westwood One, and in 1990 became fulltime anchor of NBC Radio Networks overnight hourly newscasts. In 1993 she joined Associated Press Radio as an anchor/reporter. While at AP, she wrote and recorded the daily "Today in History" series."Author Camille Bohannon"
(audible.com)
After retiring in 2008, Bohannon continued to work on individual voice-over and narration projects.
[
]
Personal life
Camille married Jim Bohannon in Silver Spring, Maryland in late 1970.[ Although they later divorced, she kept her married name.
]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bohannon, Camille
New Mexico Highlands University alumni
Living people
American radio DJs
American women radio journalists
Year of birth missing (living people)
American radio journalists
20th-century American journalists
21st-century American journalists