[music playing] SHANNON VICKERY: Sending pictures through the air.

From the moment 13-year-old James Fletcher Goodmon witnessed the first WRAL broadcast signal in 1956, the notion has filled him with wonder.

But passion for communication is something that runs through Mr. Goodmon's family tree, with roots firmly set by his grandfather, AJ Fletcher, who founded the Capitol Broadcasting Company in 1937.

Four decades later, his grandson and successor, James Fletcher Goodmon turned the company into one of the nation's most visionary corporations.

First to market on new technologies, Mr. Goodmon has also delved into the business of sports franchises and urban development, revitalizing Durham and the entire Triangle region.

In the meantime, the AJ Fletcher Foundation, with Barbara Goodmon at the helm, has endowed North Carolina with an abundance of arts and education programs, institutes, and opportunities.

With two sons continuing the family traditions of innovation and generosity, the Goodmon family propels and inspires their home state.

Tonight, in his own words, the rise of his grandfather AJ Fletcher, lawyer, entrepreneur, broadcaster, and family man, stories of the Capitol Broadcasting Company, WRAL, and the Tobacco Road Network, and his own early years as AJ's grandson, and ultimately, his successor.

Funding for this series of Biographical Conversations was made possible by support provided by Frank Daniels, Jr., and by contributions from UNC-TV viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting UNC-TV.

[music playing] ♪ Hello and welcome to the first part of our series of Biographical Conversations with Jim Goodmon.

I'm Shannon Vickery.

Thanks for joining us.

And, Mr. Goodmon, thank you so much for sharing your time with us.

JIM GOODMON: Well, thank you for having me here.

I'm excited about this.

SHANNON VICKERY: Alfred Johnston Fletcher was born on October 10, 1887.

Tell us about-- JIM GOODMON: AJ Fletcher-- some people called him Fred-- he was a surety lawyer-- he was a lawyer-- went to Wake Forest law school, developed his law practice, and did several businesses.

He had Hayes Barton Dry Cleaners, First Colony Appliances, he had a broom factory, he developed a machine to mark roads.

He was also a newspaper editor, the Apex paper.

But what was-- now all this is going on, he was an opera singer and a Shakespearean actor.

He was just sort of a Renaissance-- Renaissance man.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your grandfather's father was an Ashe County Baptist minister.

What role did religion play in your grandfather's life, especially his early childhood?

JIM GOODMON: Well, you know, I don't know.

I don't know much about that.

I know that he and my grandmother were founding members of Hayes Barton Baptist Church.

And I know that his father was a circuit writer, went to four or five churches every Sunday on horseback-- I have his saddlebags.

And it was called-- it was called home missions.

He formed six or eight churches up there.

And so there's a professor-- there's a home missions emphasis at the seminary.

So it's how do you get churches started where you are.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your grandparents, AJ and Elizabeth Fletcher, had four children.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: They had three boys, Fred, Frank, and Floyd, and a daughter, Elizabeth Louise, or Betty Lou.

JIM GOODMON: My mom.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your mother was several years younger than her brothers.

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

SHANNON VICKERY: How would you describe their relationship?

JIM GOODMON: Well, it was a very close group.

The boys-- Fred, Frank, and Floyd-- and then mom, Betty Lou.

I think they all decided they were going to-- she was the princess.

And we're all going to take care of Betty Lou.

It was a very tight, very close family, did everything together.

She went to Peace, and then UNC.

And she and my grandmother ran things.

The whole family revolved around those two.

SHANNON VICKERY: Let's talk about your Uncle Frank Fletcher and his early career.

JIM GOODMON: Good.

SHANNON VICKERY: After graduating from NC State and Duke Law School, he moved to Washington DC in 1934, where he worked as a staff attorney for the newly formed Federal Communications Commission.

Tell us more about his work at this new commission.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

OK. Frank-- lawyer-- his father was a lawyer.

And so he goes to Washington, and he ends up working there.

Actually, when he started it was the Federal Radio Commission-- it hadn't been named the FCC yet.

And he made a career in communications law.

So that's the seed that got the family into broadcasting.

SHANNON VICKERY: In 1937, AJ Fletcher and four partners formed a corporation so that they could compete in this growing new industry of broadcasting.

Tell us about what you know of what occurred at that time.

JIM GOODMON: Well, Frank-- now, remember, these were stations that had never been on the air.

This wasn't like buying a station from somebody.

It's starting a station.

So they got a license.

They worked with Frank and got a license, and put WRAL Radio AM on the air.

1240, 1,000 watts daytime.

250 at night you could get it.

You couldn't get it around the corner if you got too far away from.

A small station, small radio station.

SHANNON VICKERY: What do you think they saw as the potential of broadcasting at that time?

JIM GOODMON: Well, I think this is a new thing.

It's a community thing, it's entertainment.

And I don't think that it was, we're going to lose money.

But I don't I don't think anybody thought, OK, this is the new Apple or something, that this is going to really-- this is a new technology going to take off and everybody's going to be very prosperous because of it.

I think they liked the concept of what it can do.

SHANNON VICKERY: And there seems to be a big emphasis in there on community and community service.

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

That was a particularly-- Fred Fletcher was as much of a community person as I've ever seen.

He was on the first city council in Raleigh, when they went to the city council.

I believe he was the first city councilman.

He was head of the recreation department for more than 30 years.

Whenever I needed a decision at the company, and I needed to get a decision from Fred, I had to figure out what city park-- what city park was he working on that afternoon?

So he's very much in the community, and how are we doing-- how's the community doing?

How's everybody doing?

Now my grandfather was very interested in music, what's going on with music and performance.

So all that was a good fit.

So here we have Frank, who's a communications attorney, getting into this new thing called broadcasting.

He gets his grandfather and brother in Raleigh and the business with WRAL.

And he assists his brother in getting a radio license in Durham, WTIK.

That's Floyd Fletcher who lived in Durham.

SHANNON VICKERY: In the 1940s, Fred hosted a morning program called Tempus Fugit.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: And he was beating the ratings at that point of NBC affiliate WPTF-- JIM GOODMON: A big-- big station-- big, high-power station.

SHANNON VICKERY: Tell us about this programming.

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

I think that's-- I think that starts the notion that this is all about local.

It's all about connecting to the community.

And that's sort of been our theme all along.

I mean, it's not-- it's really not equipment, and technology, and all that kind of stuff.

It's local.

That's what we do, is local programming.

And he was so-- I told you, he would call the hospital, he knew the nurse-- who was born and what's their name.

I believe, that he called the sheriff at one point, and said, did you arrest anybody last night?

I mean, Raleigh was a small town when that happened.

And it was very local.

And that's key now-- that's a key theme in our view at Capitol.

And it's been a key part of WRAL's.

That's why we're here, is to do local.

So that's what I would say about that.

SHANNON VICKERY: What else did Fred bring in those early days as part of his storytelling and the programming strategy that he put together?

JIM GOODMON: Well, he would-- this went throughout his life.

He would see a young person perform.

He would always go up and talk to them and encourage them.

And later on, he would he would call me and say, Jim, I saw this, and I saw that.

I want you to call that person, make an audio tape for him, make a video tape for him, and see if you can help them.

So he was very community-- he wanted help everybody he saw, love the-- so he was the Easter Bunny at the city Easter egg hunt.

At the Golden Agers Christmas party-- we do a party every Christmas for the Golden Agers Club-- he sang, "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth," after jumping out of a cake.

I mean, he was a nut.

And a good-- very good one-- not so good-- he was a good nut.

He was just a great fella.

SHANNON VICKERY: And how was the community responding to all of this new programming?

JIM GOODMON: They loved him.

I mean, he had great ratings.

And it was-- as I say, that started sort of the notion that we're in the local programming business.

Anybody can be a network affiliate.

Anybody can buy programming.

What we think about is local programming.

SHANNON VICKERY: From 1942 to 1956, Fred served as general manager of Capitol Broadcasting.

In the early 1940s, Fred Fletcher started looking into a new form of radio called frequency modulation-- JIM GOODMON: FM, you know that's really-- yes.

And we got a license for FM.

FM was very new.

So with FM, we got coverage that nobody had ever dreamed of.

The AM signals-- unless you have a clear channel AM-- you didn't get much coverage.

Now with FM, tall towers, lots of power, so it really changed radio.

A big change in radio.

So FM stations go on the air-- WRAL-FM goes on the air.

Broadcasters really didn't know what to do.

The first reason is nobody had an FM.

I remember that at WRAL, we had a campaign.

We had these converter boxes.

And we would give you this converter box, you put it in your car, and the output of the converter box would go to your AM radio, just to get somebody to listen.

Everybody had to have an FM radio, and nobody did.

So the way Capitol Broadcasting looked at FM were two or three ways.

The first was as a relay.

So we started a network-- that Tobacco Radio Network, the North Carolina News Network, the Farm Network, a lot of different networks-- radio networks.

Several stations in the state would take the programming at the same time.

That was relayed by FM.

So we would do it, a station down the line would do it, and then another station would do it.

As a matter of fact, we were really in trouble if there was a board operator asleep somewhere in the middle-- nobody would get it.

So we used FM relay for the development of networks.

And that went on for some time.

And the other thing that we got interested in was background music-- the distribution of background music.

You could put a signal on the FM called an SCA subcarrier, and put a receiver in a location, and they'd get 24 hour a day music-- background music-- muzak.

So we grew that business.

SHANNON VICKERY: Tell us more about the Tobacco Road Network, and how did this consortium really become the first state-wide network?

JIM GOODMON: As you look at-- we used to have lots of farmers.

And broadcasting was a way to reach farmers.

It's no longer that way.

There are few big farms.

And so we formed the Tobacco Radio Network.

And as that, developed we had The Hog Network, and Soybean Network, and Corn Network, which was radio programming-- special programming-- usually five minutes a day to soybean farmers or-- and we actually sent that all over the southeast.

There would be 200 or 300 stations on those networks.

And on the Tobacco Radio Network, we also did sports.

We have a long history in doing UNC sports and different schools on radio.

And eventually developed the North Carolina News Network.

We fed news to 50 stations every hour.

So that was a big part of what we're doing.

Now the crop networks-- agriculture now is more direct mail than-- here's the list of farmers, you can get to them with that-- broadcasting-- and of course distribution now is by satellite or the internet, so there's no more FM relay.

So the FM stations are just good music stations.

SHANNON VICKERY: And the Tobacco Radio Network also featured the Farm News, hosted by Ray Wilkinson.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

Ray Wilkinson was a Rocky Mount broadcaster.

They brought Ray up to do the Farm News on the Tobacco Network and television.

Ray Wilkinson was on the noon news every day.

He did the hog futures and all this business, and the noon from Chicago Board of Trade.

And it's funny now.

Every time we would have a consultant come in to evaluate our programming, and say, we think you do this well and you need to do this better, they would always say, you've got to take the Farm News off.

And we would always say, well, no, thank you.

That's what we do.

So Ray did that for years.

SHANNON VICKERY: And what do you think was the impact of having this radio network and the ability to get news across the state and beyond?

JIM GOODMON: Well, it's sort of-- it's the same sort of concept of reaching the community.

SHANNON VICKERY: You were born on August 31, 1943.

JIM GOODMON: A great day.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your mother, Elizabeth Louise, Betty Lou Fletcher, was the only daughter and youngest child of AJ and Lizzie Fletcher.

Tell us about her life.

JIM GOODMON: Well, she was a wonderful pianist and a great mom, right?

I'm way off on this, but in my high school class at Broughton, the class of 1961-- 600 people-- maybe two or three of the women had professional careers.

If they did have a career, it was probably as a teacher, right?

But people don't remember how much things have changed with more women in law school than men and more women in med school, and all that sort of business.

So that was mom-- back then, you were a mom.

SHANNON VICKERY: And what did you learn from her?

JIM GOODMON: She was-- I learned being nice to other people, I think.

Why not be nice, I think, is what-- she was just very nice.

She really took care of me, made sure I was on time and did what I was supposed to do in a very loving way.

How about nurturing?

I have said this, you know-- here's a question, Jim.

Why didn't you rob a bank when you were growing up?

The answer is, I wasn't about to disappoint my mom.

No way.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your mother divorced your father.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: And married Ray Goodmon, Jr. JIM GOODMON: Yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: Tell us about him.

JIM GOODMON: Let's see, Dad was from Williamston.

They met at Carolina.

He was a pilot, flew transports and fighters in World War II.

And after they were married, I remember living at Patuxent River Naval Air Station.

And I have some-- few memories of when he was in the Navy.

But he gets out of the Navy and he comes home, and he goes to work for the family.

He worked for my grandfather.

He ran First Colony Distributors-- that was appliances.

And so my grandmother, Elizabeth Utley, family had a farm out on highway 70 adjacent to the Broughton family.

So my grandfather and Governor Broughton built a cemetery-- Montlawn Memorial Park-- out on highway 70.

It was the Utley farm and the Broughton farm, and then my-- so my father ran that business for his career.

My first job with the company was helping dig graves at my Montlawn Memorial Park.

SHANNON VICKERY: And what did you think of that job?

JIM GOODMON: Well, I loved it because I could do something.

I liked it.

SHANNON VICKERY: Let's talk about your early school days at the Lewis School.

What do you remember from there?

JIM GOODMON: School was great.

Lewis School was two blocks.

It's on Glenwood Avenue.

I would walk to school kind of down Glenwood Avenue.

It was the kind of situation that if I didn't walk by at a certain time, one of the neighbors would call mom and say, where's Jimmy?

I had a dog, Shep, who would come up the alley to meet me in the afternoons to come home.

It's like Leave it to Beaver.

I mean, it's true.

I mean, when you read stories about that, and it was just everybody knew everybody.

And I can-- I remember all of my teachers and everything that happened.

It was a great experience.

So I went from Lewis-- and Lewis is only one class per grade.

It was a small school.

I went to junior high school at Daniels first year that it opened.

I loved Daniels.

And then from Daniels, I went to Broughton.

Broughton, I could walk to, just like Lewis.

I would walk to school in the morning, walk home for lunch, walk back.

And that was a great experience.

Broughton, you know, I call the Raleigh high school-- don't forget that.

Needham Broughton High School.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your family was one of the first families in the city to have a television.

JIM GOODMON: Oh, I remember that.

Yes.

OK.

So it's the fourth grade-- let's see now, I was 10.

'53?

SHANNON VICKERY: Yes.

JIM GOODMON: I remember the whole class went home.

The TV set was round.

It was a Zenith round TV set.

And I think it was-- could it have been the coronation of Queen Elizabeth or something like-- it was something like that.

Yeah.

SHANNON VICKERY: Yeah, it was the coronation.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

Yes.

So right-- early on, we had a television.

SHANNON VICKERY: And what was it like bringing the entire fourth grade class to your home to watch it?

JIM GOODMON: We had a great time.

Remember, it wasn't very good.

It was snowy, and not much definition to the picture.

But we were just excited about this new thing.

SHANNON VICKERY: And were you already in love with broadcasting by that time?

JIM GOODMON: Well, I think, yes, to the extent that I really was interested in the-- production.

The production of programming and content, and getting things on the air.

The notion of, how does this place work to get this done?

I remember I had a wire recorder.

Most people don't remember that before we had tape recorders, we had wire recorders-- silver wire.

And I would go around record things, interview people.

They took a control room out at WRAL-AM-- built a new control room-- and I talked to them into letting me have the old control room table, and put it down the basement at 909-- I had my own.

That's interesting-- I never was, I want to be on the radio or on television.

SHANNON VICKERY: And did your uncles foster that?

Did they see that in you as a young child and foster that?

JIM GOODMON: You know, I think-- I believe that Fred did.

I didn't actually ever work with Floyd.

Frank knew about it, for when he came down.

And I think that my grandfather was interested that I was so interested.

SHANNON VICKERY: And how did he express that to you?

JIM GOODMON: Well, he made sure I had a job there.

Actually, I was the first audio operator at WRAL-TV.

I didn't have my license.

I had to get a ride with the director.

We were broadcasting from the garage at the transmitter-- studio building hadn't been built yet.

And they had to pay me out of petty cash.

It was illegal for me to work there.

So they just paid me out of petty cash.

And he made sure that-- he created the opportunity for me to work there, and to work with different people, and to sort of grow in the business.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your uncle, Floyd Fletcher, began operating the first television station in the area, WTVD in Durham, in 1954.

JIM GOODMON: How about that?

SHANNON VICKERY: Tell us about Floyd Fletcher and his influence on the family business.

JIM GOODMON: Well, he was in radio.

And there was a-- so remember now, it was-- on the subject of being pioneers, there weren't any television stations.

So we're talking about putting a television station on the air.

And in Durham, he, at WTIK, and the radio station WDNC got together and filed an application together, and acquired the license for WTVD.

The two radio stations got together and they put WTVD on the air.

And so Floyd was a real hardcore television broadcaster, also very community oriented, city council, knows everybody in town-- very nice person, lived on Monmouth Avenue in Durham, downtown Durham.

So they got on the air and did a very good job.

Very good station, he did very well with it, and probably when he was around 50, he retired.

SHANNON VICKERY: Today, we think of the Raleigh-Durham area as one large region.

But at that time, was it more separate between the two cities?

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

We were very separate.

And something I've worked on as long as I can remember is the notion that we really are one community, and that people work one place and live another place, and go out in other places-- that we're a metropolitan area made up of all these sinners.

But we were very different.

I'd have to go back-- at one time, Durham was larger than Raleigh.

Durham's run in tobacco and Black Wall Street-- Durham really took off.

SHANNON VICKERY: And it doesn't sound like at that point in time, that you saw your uncle's station, WTVD, as a competitor.

JIM GOODMON: Not quite yet.

I learned, though.

I learned.

SHANNON VICKERY: According to our research, it was Frank Fletcher, while he was still in Washington DC, who suggested that WRAL apply for a television license.

Tell us about the role that Frank played at this time.

JIM GOODMON: OK.

So this is-- so this is how this worked.

You apply, and in some cases, like for WRAL, there were two applicants.

You go through a-- you present an application, you go through a hearing, there's a hearing examiner.

There are factors that the FCC said, we will have-- an applicant that does the following, presents the following to us, stands a better chance of getting-- you need to do these things if you want to get the license.

And we had Durham Life Insurance company, great big organization, WPTF-- I am sure that the people have said, hold it a second.

WPTF against little old WRAL, no chance here.

SHANNON VICKERY: At that time, WRAL was viewed as a long shot to win the competition against WPTF, which was known for We Protect the Family.

That station was run by Durham Life Insurance.

Tell us about that company, and how formidable it was as a rival to Capitol Broadcasting.

JIM GOODMON: WPTF was a big-time, high-power radio station-- very good, very formal.

We protect the family-- you know, that kind of old-time radio.

And it was a great operation.

So you go into hearings, and you have testimony, and you go through all this business.

And the FCC came to Raleigh and had hearings in Raleigh, and asked citizens to testify and say who they thought should get the license.

So this goes on for several years.

I remember-- let's see, I would have been 12 or 13.

I remember that we would take my grandfather to the train station on Sunday and pick him up on Friday-- he, and sometimes Fred, and sometimes other people, would spend the week in Washington in hearings that went on for some time.

You asked me about Frank-- I'm going to get there.

So this hearing, this business of preparing your exhibits, and you're the lawyer, and you're making the presentation, and you're asking the questions-- I don't think that anybody would disagree with me that Frank Fletcher was one of the best at that, in the hearing.

And we convinced the Commission that we should get the license.

SHANNON VICKERY: What do you think ultimately distinguished WRAL and got the license?

JIM GOODMON: Localism.

Smaller company, community based, really enthusiastic about local programming and serving the community.

And I think that's what did it.

We can talk about the Durham Life's lawyer, and our lawyer, and all the testimony, and all the-- it was very involved.

I have all the books.

I have the application.

I have all the-- I kind of keep it off there.

So that really made the company, didn't it?

Getting the TV license really changed the trajectory for Capitol Broadcasting Company.

SHANNON VICKERY: Capitol Broadcasting Company has had a long tradition of embracing new technologies.

Can we assume that the desire to be on the leading and cutting edge when it came to television technology, especially getting that first television license, is really rooted in that sense of embracing new technologies?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah, I think that-- so our interest in technology is-- I mean, we, of course, have a fascination with technology.

But it's not the technology as much as what that technology will allow us to do in our programming.

SHANNON VICKERY: Would you describe your grandfather and your uncle during this time as they were going after the license for WRAL-TV as risk takers?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

I think that here-- here was an organization.

You had to say they were underdogs.

It was going to cost them a lot of money and a lot of time.

And I am very proud of the fact that they saw that through, right?

That was hard.

It's taking on-- it's going against the odds.

I like that.

There was a commitment there.

We can beat these guys, right?

That's a sort of attitude of not being afraid to fail, right?

Isn't that what-- that's how I look at that.

I mean, that's the notion of, holy smokes.

It's like you got a baseball game against the other team, and they have all the Cy Young Award winners, and you play them anyhow.

So good for them is my notion.

SHANNON VICKERY: And what did you learn from that?

JIM GOODMON: Well, I just watched it.

I learned-- remember now, I was just 12-- 12 or 13.

I just saw a lot of work.

The family-- the family realized that this was very important, and how hard everybody was working on it.

Kind of all hands on deck kind of thing.

And remember, they didn't really know what television was going to be.

They didn't really know what was going to happen.

SHANNON VICKERY: You were 13 years old and WRAL officially went on the air.

Tell us about that day, what you remember.

JIM GOODMON: Well, I was there at the transmitter.

I rode out with my grandfather and stood behind the film projectors to just watch.

To just see what was going on.

So we went on the air from the transmitter-- so we didn't have studios or anything.

We had a garage.

And there were two cameras in the middle of the garage.

There was one set on this end, and one set on that end, and we just turned around to do that.

And my grandfather and Fred made a statement that we were glad to be on the air.

And we ran Miracle on 34th Street as the first program.

I had a real fascination with-- you know, I still do.

I mean it's kind of a-- isn't it great we can send pictures through the air?

I mean, I'm still excited about that, sort of a childish enthusiasm about it.

I think that's why I like it so-- I mean, I'm just so fascinated with all that we can do.

Never lost that, I still say, wow.

SHANNON VICKERY: It was around this time that you asked your grandfather for a job at the television station.

How did he respond?

JIM GOODMON: He called our chief engineer, Virgil Duncan, and asked Virgil to take me in tow.

And Mr. Duncan did that gladly, I think.

I had a good time with Mr. Duncan.

It was fun.

SHANNON VICKERY: One summer, you and Virgil Duncan traveled throughout Eastern North Carolina, measuring the signal strength of the WRAL tower.

What did you learn from that experience?

JIM GOODMON: Well, it gave me a real appreciation for the first thing we have to have is a signal.

Can't pick us up, this is not going to work.

So we drove circles around the tower-- different radiuses-- in different radii from the tower, and measured our signal to make sure that the antenna we had on top of the tower worked, and that we had a circular pattern.

It was really hard, it was hot.

It was a hydraulic antenna we had on top of the car.

And when it would get to the top, every time it would squirt out hydraulic fluid, which would hit me on the head as I'm getting out of the car to attach the line.

But we had a good time.

We had a good time.

Now on the subject of coverage, when we went on the air, we gave away a lot of antennas.

We had all kinds of relationships with all the TV repair shops and antenna shops.

We'd give you an-- we do now.

We just gave away a bunch of antennas at-- I'm into giving away antennas.

You want an antenna, we'll get you one.

So that got me into the importance of coverage.

And the definition of that, when you think about it, the most important thing is your tower height, not your power.

It's height and then power.

So that was good for me as it related to understanding the business we're in.

SHANNON VICKERY: According to our research, one of the reasons your grandfather was enthusiastic about getting a television license was to combat what he viewed as a liberal bias in the media.

Can you tell us more about that?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

I don't know about the media.

I know that he was very much opposed to the News & Observer editorial policy.

And the notion that we would going to do editorials on television was a really new thing in broadcasting.

We did a 4 and 1/2 minute editorial in the 6 o'clock news, which means that lots of times, we couldn't do sports.

We didn't have time-- think about that, a 4 and 1/2 minute piece.

That's a documentary now.

So it was a very unusual proposition.

SHANNON VICKERY: What did your grandfather want to accomplish with those editorials?

JIM GOODMON: Well, he had a certain political philosophy.

We had a station-- we had an ID, a station break.

And the station break said, "The miracle of America is freedom of the individual.

This is WRAL-TV Raleigh."

We signed on-- remember when stations used to sign on with the national anthem?

Dixie-- the Norman Luboff Choir.

We also did the national anthem, but we did Dixie with it.

At 11 o'clock, our station break was, "It's 11 o'clock, where are your children?"

You know, wow, that's a-- OK, remember now, it was unusual-- in that he was very much into the arts, very supportive of artists, was very helpful with starting the North Carolina Symphony with Dr. Swalin, worked with Terry Sanford to start the School of the Arts-- very arts community-minded.

But as it relates to political philosophy, very conservative, and a segregationist.

That's hard for me to say, but he was, and-- OK, he's my grandfather.

SHANNON VICKERY: And at this point, what was your grandfather's argument when it came to segregation?

How did he explain his philosophy?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah, I remember that-- this is really interesting to talk about now.

We're thinking about so many things.

As I got older, I would-- I remember my grandmother giving me a book.

And it was why the Baptist church supports segregation.

This wasn't just-- this was everything and everybody.

SHANNON VICKERY: Shortly after World War II, AJ Fletcher met a young man who was working as a news director at WBCT radio in Roanoke Rapids.

That young man was Jesse Helms.

Tell us about his early years with Capitol Broadcasting.

JIM GOODMON: Well, that's-- Senator Helms went to work for WRAL-AM radio-- now this before-- remember, this is before I was there-- as a news director, right?

He was a news director for the radio station.

Now that's before television.

SHANNON VICKERY: When he was hired for work on the radio station, was there anyone doing editorials on the air at that time?

JIM GOODMON: Not that I know of.

Not that I know of.

I think, as a matter of fact, when WRAL-TV started editorials, I don't think any other station in the country had done company editorials.

As a matter of fact, when WRAL-TV started editorials, the FCC sort of didn't know what to call it or how to do it.

There were complaints about it, nobody's seen what are you doing.

And so the FCC had a rulemaking, and they established the rules for editorializing-- for broadcast editorializing.

So I think he was very much of a pioneer in that regard.

Stations hadn't done that.

SHANNON VICKERY: Jesse Helms had also worked as sports editor for The Raleigh Times, and his wife, Dorothy, worked for the Raleigh News & Observer-- JIM GOODMON: Dorothy, yes-- Mrs. Helms, yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: We know that Mr. Helms did not share the opinions of the N&O's editor, Jonathan Daniels.

Was there a connection point between AJ Fletcher-- JIM GOODMON: That's an understatement, but go ahead.

SHANNON VICKERY: And Jesse Helms because of their mutual dislike for the N&O JIM GOODMON: Yes.

Yes.

And so that's-- the plan was that we need to respond to, or offer an alternative position or opinion to that of the News & Observer.

SHANNON VICKERY: Around this time, Jesse Helms had returned to WRAL.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

SHANNON VICKERY: In 1960, Jesse Helms became executive vice president, vice chairman of the board, and assistant executive officer for Capitol Broadcasting.

You were a high school student at that time.

Did you have any relationship then with Jesse Helms?

JIM GOODMON: Well, Jesse Helms was-- he and Mrs. Helms, they were friends of the family.

So I knew him as a friend of the family.

I didn't have any-- I didn't work with him.

I didn't have any interaction with him.

But we'd see him at Christmas, and Thanksgiving, and different times.

He was the company-- so there was Fred, president-- Fred Fletcher.

Now he was sales and marketing.

And then there was Senator Helms, who was news, and programming, and operations.

That's how they kind of divided-- they were actually in two different buildings.

That's how the operation was run.

SHANNON VICKERY: You graduated from Broughton High School in 1961, according to-- JIM GOODMON: A great year.

SHANNON VICKERY: Upon your graduation from high school, you planned to study electrical engineering at Duke University.

JIM GOODMON: I did.

SHANNON VICKERY: What interested you about Duke and also electrical engineering?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

I thought that to-- OK, I wanted to work at WRAL, and I wanted to-- I thought that electrical engineering would put me right where I needed to be.

And so I went to Duke to study electrical engineering.

It's interesting, I was America's biggest Carolina-- I've got scrapbooks on UNC.

Mom went to UNC, Ray Goodmon went to UNC.

So I did that.

I made the decision to do that.

And the truth is, I couldn't do it.

I mean, I could do it.

But it wasn't fun, and it was hard.

I wasn't doing well.

SHANNON VICKERY: You left Duke after three years to join the Navy.

What led to that decision?

JIM GOODMON: You're going to make me do this again?

SHANNON VICKERY: And do you have any regrets?

JIM GOODMON: [laughs] OK. Well, the decision to join the Navy was I believed I needed to join something or I'd be drafted.

I mean, you were even getting drafted after you graduated then.

So my dad was in the Navy and so I joined the Navy.

Do I regret leaving Duke?

I have to think that through.

I certainly shouldn't have done it-- well, hold on.

I shouldn't have been studying engineering.

There's a whole lot of I-shouldn't-have-beens.

Should I have left?

Yes.

But I would never ever suggest to anybody that they leave college.

No.

You're going to finish college and all that.

So that was-- but I did the right thing.

I was in the wrong-- I was in the wrong major.

I wasn't doing well in it and I didn't want to do it.

Now, no, I never should have quit college, but hold it.

If I hadn't, I wouldn't have met Barbara in Memphis.

I wouldn't have the kids.

So you can think all that through.

SHANNON VICKERY: Your Naval service lasted for three years.

What lessons did you learn from that service?

JIM GOODMON: I went in the Navy as an E1, which is-- there's nothing lower than E1.

I went to boot camp out in California.

And then I was assigned to the Naval Air Station in Memphis and stayed there the entire time.

I think that I got a good sense of organization.

I got a good sense of leadership.

I got a good idea about, there are organizational goals here that we're going to do.

Here's the things we're going to do, and we're all going to pull together to do it.

And there's an organizational-- there's a concept of we're all on the same team and we're going to make this happen.

I really liked the experience of the military.

I like to hire people that have been in the military, right?

There's a sense of organization, of purpose, of something, of this thing is bigger than I am, kind of thing.

So I had a job while I was in Memphis.

So it was actually-- the Naval Air Station there also was the training location, the school location, for avionics.

So I was there, it was kind of like I had a day job.

So I worked for the ABC affiliate at night, WBHQ, in Memphis, in downtown Memphis.

So I kind of kept my foot into what's going on.

SHANNON VICKERY: In 1968, you return to Raleigh.

But before we talk about your work with Capitol Broadcasting, I want to follow up on a recent interview you did when you talked about finding a photo of yourself in one of your grandfather's scrapbooks.

It was captioned.

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

Now he loved scrapbooks.

He would talk to us about it and say, you need to keep this, you need to keep that, you need to have scrapbooks.

And then going through his scrapbooks, I saw a picture-- a baby picture of me, and it said, I'm counting on this one.

That was sort of-- that surprised me.

I had to think that through.

I believe that he was counting on his daughter's children.

SHANNON VICKERY: When did you realize that you would follow in the footsteps of your grandfather?

JIM GOODMON: Yeah.

I always thought that I would work at Capitol Broadcasting, particularly at WRAL-TV.

I really didn't have a-- how is this going to fit and who's going to do this and do that.

I didn't have a plan.

I had to watch a plan develop.

I mean, just a lot-- there were a lot of circumstances that I ended up where I ended up-- wasn't a plan.

SHANNON VICKERY: Do you think your grandfather had plans for you?

JIM GOODMON: Yes.

Well, he did-- in the end, he did, when he left to me control of the company.

So that's a pretty forthright statement.

But a lot of things happened before we got to that.

And people would say, why'd he do that?

I would say, well, you know, you need to ask him.

SHANNON VICKERY: And we'll leave it there for now.

Mr. Goodmon, thank you so much for sharing your time with us.

JIM GOODMON: Well, thank you, Shannon.

SHANNON VICKERY: And we'll pick back up where we left off in the next of our Biographical Conversations with Jim Goodmon.

For more information on this series and the Biographical Conversations project, you can go to our website.

Thanks for joining us.

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