I was sitting in my living room I don't exactly remember when on a Friday night my guess was the football season of 1998. I was watching TV and I know WHIG was replaying a SouthWest Edgecombe football game without any play by play but they were using the PA at SouthWest.
Since moving to Rocky Mount In 1995 I had already been to WRMT to offer my services for radio but they had shown no interest. I walked into what they were calling a studio and met Herb Greenburg for the first time. My first experience with Herb was no better than my reception from the radio station.
My wife Pat retired from Carolina telephone in early 1999 and took a job with the Mall in the Marketing department and during a Fathers Day promotion they set up a putting green and the father who shot the lowest score won a weekend in Myrtle Beach. The Mall needed someone who could get on the PA and encourage fathers to come over and try to win the trip. Pat says to her boss my husband can do that for you and for free!
I was doing my carnival barking and here comes Herb with his camera and he is going to shoot footage for TV. Sometime while I am begging fathers to come over Herb says to Pat. "Who is that guy he's pretty good on that Mic." Pats says to Herb" You have already met him last fall, he came by the station looking to do sports but you turned him down".
By September I was doing play by play on WHIG football coverage. Of course that was September of 1999 and Hurricane Floyd. The TV station like so many was without power for a couple of days. The Saturday afternoon when the power was back on Herb calls me about 6 pm, that's Herb call you at the last minute and ask if I would come to the station and go on the air with him as cameraman and just tell everyone that had power every bit of information that the city and the state had available that everyone still needed to know about what was happening in the area concerning the hurricane conditions. He said I doubt many people have power we will stay on the air until we have told all the info that we have.
We went on the air around seven pm and about 2:30am Herb says to me. I can't believe this. The phone has not stop ringing the entire time we have been on the air. I was wore out and he was give out too. That night showed Herb how important His tiny station was to Rocky Mount. Yes we all make fun of how hokie programming is and yet we all seem to know what's on.
Herb knew nothing about how to run a TV station but he provided to all of us a little bit of Rocky Mount. He put on all kinds of programming from preachers to lawyers. Most of all if you were a civic organization you got free time on air. Thirty minutes or 12 hours with a telethon Herb did it for Rocky Mount.
I have no idea what the future will be for WHIG but what ever direction it goes no one will be able to put into it like Herb did. He gave his whole heart and Rocky Mount is better off that Herb decided after getting out of the garment business that he wanted to do a TV.
Goodbye Friend:
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