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Dick Bennick

Dick’s career in radio dates back to 1949 in North Carolina where he was the top-rated disc jockey for many years, introducing rock and roll to the Winston-Salem area at WTOB in 1956-57. He was host of the station’s Coca Cola Hi-Fi Club, produced a record for a King, North Carolina group called The King Bees for his own record label, Salem Records, and had a nightclub in Greensboro about 25 miles away that burned down sometime in the 1960’s. Dick held weekly teen dances on Friday and Saturday nights and was the Dick Clark of Winston-Salem, hosting his own TV dance party on a local station. He was a great announcer with a wonderful personality who became not only popular, but a strong community leader as well.

While working at WGHP-TV in the Winston-Salem/Greensboro/High Point area around 1965, Dick developed a character called Dr. Paul Bearer who hosted horrible old movies on the TV station each weekend. For more information on this part of his life, see Dr. Paul Bearer in Who’s Who).

Around 1971 Dick moved to Florida. His first stop was doing mornings and sales for WQPD in Lakeland and then sales for Cypress Gardens’ WGTO where he later became General Manager, staying on until Hubbard Broadcasting (also owner of WTOG-TV Channel 44 where Dick, as Dr. Paul Bearer, hosted Creature Feature) sold the station in 1986. From then until his death he was Regional Sales Manager for WVFM (later WEZY-FM) and WLKF-AM in Lakeland.

Dick continued with his TV alter ego and his work at the Lakeland stations until 1995 when he died following open heart surgery.

Station History