Before Paul Raymon ever graduated from the University of Alabama with a degree in broadcasting, he had already begun working in his chosen career. He was just 15 when he landed a job at an Alabama radio station as a news announcer.
“The story I was always told was that he walked around with his mother’s iron cord, pretending to announce the news,” said his wife, Brenda Raymon.
Paul Raymon, a former chairman and chief executive of WAGA-TV, died Friday at Piedmont Hospital from complications of cancer. He was 85. A graveside service was held Sunday at Arlington Memorial Park. Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care was in charge of arrangements.
Raymon worked in radio until the early 1950s, when he hired away by an Alabama television station, his wife said. He came to Atlanta in 1955 to take a job with WAGA, which was a CBS affiliate then owned by Storer Communications, as sports director. In 1959, he moved from the broadcast side to sales and in a year, he was named local sales manager and served as Storer’s southern representative for TV sales.
By 1964, he became station manager and in 1969, he was first appointed a Storer vice president and then president of the Miami-based Storer’s cable division. After a couple of years in Miami, Raymon moved back to Atlanta to become vice president and general manager of WAGA. He retired in 1988, one year after the station was sold to Gillett Communications. WAGA was subsequently sold to Fox in 1994.
Over his long career, Raymon won an Emmy and a Peabody and in 1997, he was elected to the Georgia Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame, which is housed at the University of Georgia. He also taught media studies at Kennesaw State University and ran the Raymon Media Group, an independent media consulting and programming company.
During his years at WAGA, he read on-air editorials and those thoughts were his, not something he was assigned to read, said Michael Leff, his brother-in-law.
Outside the newsroom, Raymon worked with several groups and organizations, including serving as chairman of the Atlanta Urban League and on the board of the Anti-Defamation League.
“There was nothing phony about Paul,” Leff, an Atlanta attorney, said. “He believed in the things he read, even when some of those ideas were not popular in his community.”
In addition to his wife, survivors include a son, David Raymon; daughter, Tracy Marcano; and two grandchildren, all of Atlanta.
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