Don Kennedy papers

Don Kennedy was born on March 2nd, 1930, in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Kennedy’s career in broadcasting started at the age of thirteen when he constructed a half-watt radio station in the basement of his home. He got his first paying job playing pop records at WPIC in Sharon, Pennsylvania, when he was 17. While in college, Kennedy worked at a local radio station as a sports and news announcer and eventually became the chief engineer of the small station. After college he was drafted into the Army, and worked as a studio chief in the psychological warfare unit at the end of the Korean War. After his military service, Kennedy moved to Atlanta where he anchored the eleven o'clock news at WSB-TV. He was assigned to host a children's show for that station as a policeman character, "Officer Don." He played Officer Don on multiple shows from 1956 to 1969 with the most popular, The Popeye Club, amassing the largest audience of any such local program in the nation. In 1960 he established WKLS-FM in Atlanta, serving as President and General Manager. He also set up and served as President of Georgia Network and Florida Network, two of the pioneer state news networks in the nation. In 1976 his company returned Atlanta's channel 36, WATL-TV, to the air.

Kennedy returned to popular music broadcasting with the syndicated radio program Big Band Jump, which ran from 1986 to 2013 and could be heard nationwide for most of its run. Episodes of the show were based on a theme or artist from Swing-era popular music, and often featured Kennedy's original interviews with big band performers, songwriters, and arrangers. Kennedy also provided voice work for several characters on Cartoon Network programs including Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Terror Phone and as narrator for award winning documentaries aired on Georgia Public Television. He is the recipient of the Silver Circle Award and two Emmy Awards from the Atlanta Chapter of National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Pioneer Broadcaster and Georgia Broadcaster's Hall of Fame awards from the Georgia Association of Broadcasters and honorary membership in the DiGamma Kappa Broadcast Fraternity at the University of Georgia. In 2007 he was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame for Career Achievement.