Cy Bahakel
| Cy Bahakel | |
|---|---|
| Member of the North Carolina State Senate from the district |
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In office 1972–1976 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 12, 1919 Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. |
| Died | April 20, 2006 (aged 87) Charlotte, North Carolina, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Alma mater | University of Alabama |
Cy Nesbe Bahakel (April 12, 1919 – April 20, 2006) was an American politician. He was a North Carolina state senator and a media magnate. He was a member of the Democratic Party.
Bahakel was born to a poor Lebanese family in Birmingham, Alabama on April 12, 1919. He helped pay his way through law school at the University of Alabama by doing sports play-by-play and other announcing duties at Tuscaloosa's WJRD-AM radio, a sideline that made him question his goals to become a lawyer. He practiced law for six months, but the lure of the microphone was too strong. He and a friend put up $12,500 each and launched a radio station in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Within a year, Bahakel bought out his partner and found that one of the best investments in business was an hour spent talking to customers over a cup of coffee. He went on to build radio stations from scratch in Greenwood, Mississippi, Kingsport, Tennessee, and Roanoke, Virginia. One of his larger-market radio purchases was WDOD-FM, Chattanooga and its now defunct counterpart, WDOD-AM, and later WDEF-AM and WDEF-FM, also Chattanooga, all still owned by Bahakel Communications. As the era of television dawned in the 1950s, Bahakel tried his hand in this new fad as well, and founded WABG-TV in Greenwood, the Mississippi Delta's first TV station, in 1959. Bahakel later acquired stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina (WCCA-TV), and Montgomery, Alabama.
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