KABC
After 43 years of service to ABC7 viewers, Inland Empire Bureau Chief Bob Banfield is retiring. When Bob started at Channel 7, gas was 35 cents a gallon, Lyndon Johnson was president, and America was at war with Vietnam.
Bob grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio. In 1948, his performances in high school theater productions caught the eye of a car dealer in town who had connections to the local radio station WOHI.
“This man’s daughter was in some of those plays. He called me and said, ‘We’re putting a radio station together, would you be interested in being a junior announcer?’ And I was gonna go to work in the steel mill, I had no idea what this business is, you know?” said Bob. “I talked it over with my wife-to-be, and said ‘Well, let’s give this a shot.'” More…