JIM BABB: A veteran broadcaster's innovative career.

• Author: Infanzon, Vanessa
• Position: Pillars of North Carolina

Jim Babb may owe his career in journalism and broadcasting to Dilworth Highlights and Headlines, the student newspaper at his Charlotte elementary school. Since then, he's been devoted to telling stories and forwarding the television and radio industry.

Born in Manhattan, Babb and his family moved to Charlotte in 1937. In high school, he was a sports correspondent for The Charlotte News and The Charlotte Observer. He attended Newberry College on a football scholarship for one semester, then switched to UNC Chapel Hill to study journalism. Unable to afford tuition, he left after two years and joined the Army. A lieutenant noticed his love for writing and helped him land a public information job covering sports at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina.

After completing his military obligation, Babb earned a bachelor's degree in business from Belmont Abbey College in 1959. His first job at Charlotte's WBTV required him to write promotional articles about TV personalities. The station had been in business for 10 years at that time. He met his wife, Mary Lou, while hand-delivering the stories to the Charlotte Observer, where she wrote for the "womens pages."

He spent the next three decades with WBTV and its owner, Greensboro-based Jefferson-Pilot Broadcasting. He was the station's general manager in the mid-1970s, then became an executive vice president in 1978 and the broadcasters CEO in 1988.

A tiff with longtime Jefferson-Pilot CEO Roger Soles prompted his departure in 1991. He promptly became president of Outlet Communications, a smaller TV and radio broadcaster owned by private-equity investors. He commuted to Outlet's Providence, Rhode Island, headquarters for five years before the company's three TV stations were sold to NBC for more than $310 million.

He ended his career in 2018 as executive vice president at Charlotte-based Bahakel Communications.

His accolades include an Emmy Award for lifetime achievement from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and an induction into the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Babb, 90, served as president of the state broadcasters association and chaired boards connected to the National Association of Broadcasters and YMCA of Central Carolinas. He has been a trustee at Appalachian State University, UNC Charlotte and Belmont Abbey, and he is a former member of the board of governors of the UNC System. When the Arts and Sciences Council of Charlotte ran its first $1...