William Perry Banner, 82, of Asheville, passed away Monday, August 14 after a long illness.
He was born on July 30, 1924, in Falls Mills, Virginia to George Thomas Banner, an engineer with the Norfolk and Western Railroad and Reba Maude Lafon.
The third of four children, early in his life Bill became fascinated with storytelling, radio, and photography. At the age of fourteen he was broadcasting from a homemade radio station in his backyard and making home movies that still survive, while attending The Art Studio, a private high school in Bluefield, West Virginia where he worked at radio station WHIS whose studios were next door. After graduating in 1939, he attended radio and television school in New York City where he lived with his sister Ruth.
After receiving his degree in 1941, he was employed at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, SC to do radio programming for the Armed Forces Radio. Returning to his home region, he again worked as an announcer at WHIS and for the Tennessee Radio Network in Bristol where he worked with Ernie Ford and Jack Webb at WOPI. It was in Bristol that he met his wife, Evangeline Louise Miller, a singer on one of the live radio programs popular at the time. They were married on March 20, 1943.
Bill's work next took them to Spartanburg, SC where he attended Wofford College and became a well known radio personality on WSPA.
In 1952, he made the leap to television, turning his longtime hobby of photography into his livelihood by first becoming film director at WGVL in Greenville, SC and three years later moving to WLOS-TV in Asheville where he worked as director of photography, writing and producing commercials and film and video programs until retiring in 1999.
Through the years, he enjoyed writing articles for professional journals as well as short stories for popular magazines, and pursuing his hobbies of genealogical research and collecting artifacts of the history of recording and broadcasting, building a reputation for his museum quality collection of phonograph records, radio programs, films, and broadcasting equipment. He will be well known as a radio and television pioneer.
Burial: Riverside Cemetery
He was born on July 30, 1924, in Falls Mills, Virginia to George Thomas Banner, an engineer with the Norfolk and Western Railroad and Reba Maude Lafon.
The third of four children, early in his life Bill became fascinated with storytelling, radio, and photography. At the age of fourteen he was broadcasting from a homemade radio station in his backyard and making home movies that still survive, while attending The Art Studio, a private high school in Bluefield, West Virginia where he worked at radio station WHIS whose studios were next door. After graduating in 1939, he attended radio and television school in New York City where he lived with his sister Ruth.
After receiving his degree in 1941, he was employed at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, SC to do radio programming for the Armed Forces Radio. Returning to his home region, he again worked as an announcer at WHIS and for the Tennessee Radio Network in Bristol where he worked with Ernie Ford and Jack Webb at WOPI. It was in Bristol that he met his wife, Evangeline Louise Miller, a singer on one of the live radio programs popular at the time. They were married on March 20, 1943.
Bill's work next took them to Spartanburg, SC where he attended Wofford College and became a well known radio personality on WSPA.
In 1952, he made the leap to television, turning his longtime hobby of photography into his livelihood by first becoming film director at WGVL in Greenville, SC and three years later moving to WLOS-TV in Asheville where he worked as director of photography, writing and producing commercials and film and video programs until retiring in 1999.
Through the years, he enjoyed writing articles for professional journals as well as short stories for popular magazines, and pursuing his hobbies of genealogical research and collecting artifacts of the history of recording and broadcasting, building a reputation for his museum quality collection of phonograph records, radio programs, films, and broadcasting equipment. He will be well known as a radio and television pioneer.
Burial: Riverside Cemetery
William Perry Banner, 82, of Asheville, passed away Monday, August 14 after a long illness.
He was born on July 30, 1924, in Falls Mills, Virginia to George Thomas Banner, an engineer with the Norfolk and Western Railroad and Reba Maude Lafon.
The third of four children, early in his life Bill became fascinated with storytelling, radio, and photography. At the age of fourteen he was broadcasting from a homemade radio station in his backyard and making home movies that still survive, while attending The Art Studio, a private high school in Bluefield, West Virginia where he worked at radio station WHIS whose studios were next door. After graduating in 1939, he attended radio and television school in New York City where he lived with his sister Ruth.
After receiving his degree in 1941, he was employed at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, SC to do radio programming for the Armed Forces Radio. Returning to his home region, he again worked as an announcer at WHIS and for the Tennessee Radio Network in Bristol where he worked with Ernie Ford and Jack Webb at WOPI. It was in Bristol that he met his wife, Evangeline Louise Miller, a singer on one of the live radio programs popular at the time. They were married on March 20, 1943.
Bill's work next took them to Spartanburg, SC where he attended Wofford College and became a well known radio personality on WSPA.
In 1952, he made the leap to television, turning his longtime hobby of photography into his livelihood by first becoming film director at WGVL in Greenville, SC and three years later moving to WLOS-TV in Asheville where he worked as director of photography, writing and producing commercials and film and video programs until retiring in 1999.
Through the years, he enjoyed writing articles for professional journals as well as short stories for popular magazines, and pursuing his hobbies of genealogical research and collecting artifacts of the history of recording and broadcasting, building a reputation for his museum quality collection of phonograph records, radio programs, films, and broadcasting equipment. He will be well known as a radio and television pioneer.
Burial: Riverside Cemetery
He was born on July 30, 1924, in Falls Mills, Virginia to George Thomas Banner, an engineer with the Norfolk and Western Railroad and Reba Maude Lafon.
The third of four children, early in his life Bill became fascinated with storytelling, radio, and photography. At the age of fourteen he was broadcasting from a homemade radio station in his backyard and making home movies that still survive, while attending The Art Studio, a private high school in Bluefield, West Virginia where he worked at radio station WHIS whose studios were next door. After graduating in 1939, he attended radio and television school in New York City where he lived with his sister Ruth.
After receiving his degree in 1941, he was employed at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, SC to do radio programming for the Armed Forces Radio. Returning to his home region, he again worked as an announcer at WHIS and for the Tennessee Radio Network in Bristol where he worked with Ernie Ford and Jack Webb at WOPI. It was in Bristol that he met his wife, Evangeline Louise Miller, a singer on one of the live radio programs popular at the time. They were married on March 20, 1943.
Bill's work next took them to Spartanburg, SC where he attended Wofford College and became a well known radio personality on WSPA.
In 1952, he made the leap to television, turning his longtime hobby of photography into his livelihood by first becoming film director at WGVL in Greenville, SC and three years later moving to WLOS-TV in Asheville where he worked as director of photography, writing and producing commercials and film and video programs until retiring in 1999.
Through the years, he enjoyed writing articles for professional journals as well as short stories for popular magazines, and pursuing his hobbies of genealogical research and collecting artifacts of the history of recording and broadcasting, building a reputation for his museum quality collection of phonograph records, radio programs, films, and broadcasting equipment. He will be well known as a radio and television pioneer.
Burial: Riverside Cemetery
