[March 15, 2010] Tribute -- Bob Wormington, a pioneering TV general manager, put Channel 41 on the map Tweet Mar 15, 2010 (The Kansas City Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Who: Bob Wormington, 83, of Overland Park. When and how he died: March 6, of complications following a stroke. TV pioneer: The Dodge City native, World War II veteran and Washburn University graduate moved to Kansas City in time to help put its first TV station, WDAF, on the air in 1949. During the Korean War, the Air Force stationed Wormington near Los Angeles and sent him to learn TV production at NBC. He directed network news events and shows such as "America After Dark." He took this experience back home and rose to the position of general manager at WDAF. In 1970, he was named the first general manager of KBMA, Channel 41. During his 23 years there he made it one of the country's most successful independent (non-network-affiliated) television stations. Channel 41 eventually changed its call letters to KSHB, after its purchase by Scripps-Howard in 1977, and later became a Fox affiliate. The year after Wormington retired, KSHB switched to NBC. Wormington knew that independents faced difficult odds. His twin brother, Bill, was running KCIT, Channel 50, which ran out of money in 1971. But thanks to superior capital investment, KBMA not only survived, it thrived. Wormington acquired the rights to Royals baseball, and during the team's glory days as many as 70 percent of TVs in use in Kansas City were tuned to Channel 41. "From a small staff with offices on the top floor of the BMA Tower, we grew into one of the more respected and popular television stations in the country," recalled Mike Vrabac, who joined the Channel 41 sales staff shortly after college in 1972. Earlier this month, Vrabac became KSHB's fifth general manager. Visionary/innovator: "Bob had a good vision of what he wanted it to be," Vrabac said. "He wanted to appeal to children so that as they grew they'd be more familiar with the station. The sports teams gave the station a real local identity." Besides the Royals, Channel 41 aired games of the NBA Kings and NHL Scouts. Wormington also produced farm-related programs for regional cable operators at a time when cable was starting to take off, and he made the station a charter member of Paramount Television Service in 1977, an early attempt to create America's fourth TV network. Another investment was in the Independent Television News Association, or ITNA, which began supplying a nightly national newscast to KBMA viewers in 1975. "He was one of the nicest men I ever met, and sometimes I regret not joining with him and Scripps to start a cable news network," recalled Reese Schonfeld, who created ITNA and went on to launch CNN for Ted Turner in 1980. In 1985, Wormington tried a local 15-minute newscast, "41 Express," with flashy on-screen graphics and faster pacing than the cable services, but it met with limited success. "It was ahead of its time," said Bob Inderman, the station's first news director. "A lot of the screen innovations you see at CNN and Fox News now were launched at 41." Civic-minded: Wormington served on Avila University's board; the radio-TV advisory board at the University of Kansas, where he earned his master's degree; and the national boards of Catholic Charities and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He kept a vacation home in Ireland and was a proud Irish-American. He felt it was his civic duty to be an ethical broadcaster. "Television, at least indirectly, has to accept part of the responsibility for what is happening to the American family," he told The Star in 1979. "It holds up false images by indicating approval of abnormal and immoral behavior in its programming and saying it is basically acceptable." Survivors include: His wife and six children. The last word: "I never heard a harsh word spoken by anyone against him -- including his competitors," Inderman said. To suggest community members to profile, send e-mail to [email protected]. To see more of The Kansas City Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.kansascity.com. Copyright (c) 2010, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]