Growing up in Illinois, surrounded by the presence of great teams like the Chicago Bears and Bulls, Wayne Jackson wanted to be a sports announcer.
Early in his career, with that goal in mind, he was working through the ranks at radio stations when he moved to North Carolina to take a job in Rocky Mount.
Soon, the television station that would become WECT called with an offer and the chance to host a live 90-minute afternoon talk show.
Jackson had some concerns.
“I told them I’d never been on television and didn’t know much about it,” he said. “Of course, it was 1954. The station was only six months old. No one really knew much about it.”
WILMINGTON – Thumb through any local historian’s personal library and you’re likely to find a dog-eared, well-worn copy of Beverly Tetterton’s book, “Wilmington: Lost but Not Forgotten.”
A guide to the built history that defined Wilmington but fell victim to its progress and time, the book is an essential text on this region from its most essential historical voice of the last quarter century.
As the former special collections librarian and chief of the New Hanover County Library’s North Carolina Room, Tetterton has brought history to the masses in a way her predecessors didn’t. The likes of celebrated historians James Sprunt and Louis T. Moore preserved the Cape Fear’s stories in written accounts that have served as the backbone of local research for 100 years.