Founder of WABI radio and TV, Bronson, dies at 84

BANGOR – Richard Burr Bronson Sr., a television pioneer who was instrumental in bringing the small screen to life in Bangor, died last Friday at the age of 84.

Bronson started out in radio in 1941 in Massachusetts and moved to the Bangor area to work at WABI radio in 1949. He then became program director at WABI-TV when it hit the airwaves in January 1953. It was the first television station north of Boston. He later served the station as general manager.

George Gonyar, who also would later be general manager at WABI, remembers Bronson as a wonderful announcer and a very creative producer of local shows, including Christmas Daddies and the Santa Claus Show, which ran for three weeks every year just before Christmas.

Country music was very popular in the 1950s, and Bronson started producing three local shows featuring Gene Hooper, Dick Curless and Hal Lone Pine. He also started a show featuring Kay Dewitt, who sang and interviewed local personalities. And he started Channel 5 News.

Bronson was at the station when George McHale came to town as a young man and became the icon known as George Hale. Hale remembers Bronson as a “great pro” who taught him quite a lot. He said Bronson had a flair for promotion.

“He would do things flamboyantly, but correctly,” Hale said.

As director at the only station in town, Bronson got the pick of offerings from ABC, CBS, NBC and Dumont. All the local shows were broadcast live, and the network shows were sent as tapes.

When WLBZ came to town in 1954 and eventually took the NBC affiliation, the two stations split the offerings of ABC until Channel 7 came to town about a decade later.

Margo Cobb, who worked as a copywriter at WLBZ when it started, remembers being in awe of Bronson.

“He came with a lot of experience and had such a beautiful voice,” Cobb said. She remembers him being very expressive. Cobb, who later became general manager and vice president at WLBZ, also worked with Bronson when, in 1969, he started his own public relations and advertising agency.

His first client was WABI, but he later had many, including malls, car dealers and banks. He had a great interest in fairs and took great pride in promoting the Bangor and Skowhegan fairs for many years. Many remember him working closely with his wife, Connie, to whom he was married for 58 years.

For some years Bronson broadcast live harness racing from the Bangor and Skowhegan fairs.

Bronson was an engaging, interesting man who enjoyed conversation, especially about Maine, Maine people and his work.

Always a circus buff, he for many years edited the Circus World Historical Society’s quarterly newsletter, which had readers on seven continents.

As a child, Bronson had multiple surgeries to deal with polio. As an adult he was regional co-coordinator for the March of Dimes, which raised money to fight polio.

For many years a resident of Veazie, Bronson served the town as first selectman and deacon of the Veazie Congregational Church. He raised more money per capita for the March of Dimes in the town of Veazie than was raised in any other town in the United States.

He was proud of his work and could entertain a reporter for long periods of time with stories of his clients in this central and eastern region of Maine that he knew so well.

In 1958, Bronson was active in organizing a yearlong 150th birthday party for Bangor. Perhaps one of the most unlikely events in the history of Bangor was held during that celebration when the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants played an exhibition football game at the Garland Street field.

While that seems so unlikely today, it probably is just as likely as the scores of cable and dish television stations that are available to viewers these days would have seemed to Bronson back in 1953 when he sent that first live television show over Bangor airwaves.

A memorial service will be held at noon Saturday, Dec. 4, at the Hammond Street Congregational Church in Bangor.