Five decades and lots of memories later, Jim Bohannon signed off for the final time Friday night. Bohannon’s career began in the 1960s with a stint at his hometown station, KLWT-AM in Lebanon, Missouri. He rose to national prominence when he replaced Larry King in 1993.
Bohannon was inducted into the NAB Broadcasting Hall of Fame as well as the Missouri Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. He’s been battling undisclosed health problems this year and recently decided to end his show.
Bohannon spent the first portion of his show Friday introducing the audience to Rich Valdes who has been named as his replacement. Valdes, a former staffer in ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration, was the former Director of Special Operations at Project Veritas.
Valdes told Bohannon that he feels the same type of pressure that Bohannon must have felt when he took over the “Larry King Show” in the 1990s.
“You have a track record, people have heard you and you’ve got the goods and the talent,” Bohannon said. “You have the ability to do the job.”
Valdes said that filling in for Bohannon gave him an opportunity to better understand what made him so great. Valdes shared that doing talk radio has been one of the greatest challenges of his life.
“Doing your show, I got to study you,” Valdes told Bohannon. “When they told me I was going to be filling in for you, I started listening to hours and hours and hours of tape to hear your style and your cadence and just to make sure that I delivered the show the way the audience was looking for.”
“The Jim Bohannon Show” is currently heard on more than 300 radio affiliates nationwide.
