GADSDEN, AL (WBRC) -
If you live in or around Gadsden or have even visited, you're likely aware of the city's motto, "City of Champions." It's on the signs welcoming visitors to the Etowah County seat.
The man who first coined that phrase in 1958, longtime broadcaster Charles F. Boman, died Thursday at a Gadsden hospital. He was 81. Boman had been suffering from cancer.
Boman's long broadcasting career began on Gadsden radio station WJBY, where he worked part time after school beginning in 1946. He later went on to become program director at WGAD, and during his Korean War stint, announced for Armed Forces Radio. During the "doo-wop" era, longtime Gadsden residents recall hearing his voice and the music he played, coming out of car radios at several drive-in burger restaurants, in the days before fast food. Listeners knew him first as "Buttermilk Boman," then as "Charlie B," a nickname still affectionately used up until his death.
It was during that time when he interviewed Gadsden's mayor one evening in August 1958, after yet another sports team had won national recognition (as several had that year, also winning state playoffs). Boman referred to the city as "the city of champions," and the nickname stuck.
Boman went on to purchase radio station WETO in 1963, changing the call letters to his old radio station, WJBY (which had gone off the air in 1950). In 1966 he founded Gadsden's first FM station, WLJM-FM, using the first initials of three of his children. He sold that station in 1975, at which point it evolved into WQEN, "Q-104", a top 40 station. WQEN moved from Gadsden to Trussville in 2005.
Boman later published the TV Facts listings magazing from 1980 until 1996. He served at times as a member of the Alabama Public Television Board, chairman of the Gadsden Chamber of Commerce, and in the 1990s was chairman of the Etowah County Republican Party. He ran unsuccessfully for state senate and state house of representatives. He was named Broadcaster of the Year by the Alabama Broadcasters' Association in 1978, the same year he served as chamber chairman.
Boman leaves behind a wife, Majorie, five children and 15 grandchildren.
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