GADSDEN,AL (WBRC) - Funeral arrangements are set for Sunday for a veteran Gadsden area broadcaster and civic booster.
Eighty one year-old Charles Boman died Thursday at a Gadsden hospital, following a fight with cancer.
Funeral services are set for 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon at the First Baptist Church of Gadsden. Visitation will take place for two hours before the service.
Boman was on the air for some 30 years, including his stint as a disc jockey during the dawn of the doo-wop era in the 1950s. He was also a staff announcer for Armed Forces radio during his time in the Army. In 1958, while working at WGAD-AM, Boman coined the phrase "City of Champions" during one of his broadcasts, in honor of the Emma Sansom High School Band and a number of sports teams that earned national and state recognition during the 1957-58 time frame. The nickname stuck, and "The City of Champions" can still be seen to this day on signs welcoming motorists to Gadsden.
Boman owned two Gadsden radio stations—WJBY beginning in 1963, and Gadsden's first FM station, WLJM-FM, from its founding in 1966 until it was sold in 1974. It had been a beautiful music station until he sold it, at which point it evolved into the Top 40 station, WQEN-FM, Q-104. The station moved to Trussville in 2005.
For years, during the time Gadsden State Community College had a broadcasting program, Boman personally presented the Charles F. Boman award to each year's outstanding broadcasting student. He was also a former president of the Gadsden Area Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Etowah County Republican Party, Alabama Broadcasters' Association Broadcaster of the Year for 1978, and immediate past president of the Alabama Public Television Board.
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