The following is an online extra from our February 2023 Sourcebook issue, headed to newsstands soon, part of the feature in which prominent Richmonders share their happy places.
Photo by Jay Paul
Bill Bevins, radio and TV personality
The set of ‘Virginia This Morning’ at CBS 6
I’m really Richmond. I was born at West Hospital on Broad Street, and I grew up watching CBS 6. I went into a Channel 6 studio for the first time when I was 7 or 8. I was with my Cub Scout troop, and we were there for a local cut-in during the “Howdy Doody” show. That same studio is in use today; it’s where the lottery drawings happen — and I do that twice a week.
Now I’m 73, and I work with a bunch of young things at “Virginia This Morning,” and it’s like going to a party every day. I worked in radio — and I’m still on the radio, on a streaming station, The Breeze. I’ve been at Channel 6, part time, for more than 30 years. People always ask me which I like better: radio or TV. They’re total opposites. Radio is an individual sport. It’s all on you, your imagination, your take on things. TV is a team — a big team, not a small team. Everybody has to rely on everybody else, or it doesn’t work.
With “Virginia This Morning,” it’s like family. They don’t expect anything of me. I just show up to be goofy and silly. Jessica Noll, my co-host, is very organized and disciplined, so they leave time for me to just go off and see where it goes. It’s fun. But being in that historic place — CBS 6 was the South’s first television station — being part of that history, means a lot to me.
—as told to Paula Peters Chambers
