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Cy Bahakel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cy N. Bahakel (April 12, 1919 - April 20, 2006) was a North Carolina state Senator and an American media magnate.
Bahakel was born to a poor Lebanese family in Birmingham, Alabama on April 12, 1919. He helped pay his way through law school at the University of Alabama by doing sports play-by-play and other announcing duties at Tuscaloosa's WJRD-AM radio, a sideline that made him question his goals to become a lawyer. He practiced law for six months, but the lure of the microphone was too strong. He and a friend put up $12,500 each and launched a radio station in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Within a year, Bahakel bought out his partner and found that one of the best investments in business was an hour spent talking to customers over a cup of coffee. He went on to build radio stations from scratch in Greenwood, Mississippi, Kingsport, Tennessee, and Roanoke, Virginia. As the era of television dawned in the 1950s, Bahakel tried his hand in this new fad as well, and founded WABG-TV in Greenwood, the Mississippi Delta's first TV station, in 1959. Bahakel later acquired stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, and Montgomery, Alabama. Bahakel was instrumental in bringing the Charlotte Hornets NBA franchise to that city in 1987.
Bahakel ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970, losing to incumbent Charles R. Jonas.[1] Bahakel served in the North Carolina Senate from 1972 until 1976.
Bahakel died at his home in Charlotte on April 20, 2006 at the age of 87. His son-in-law was state senator Robert Pittenger.