My Dad

My Dad died this week. Only 67 years young. My dad started his 38+ year career in communications at WKAZ Radio in Charleston, W.VA, as a disc jockey and program director.

His international experience in television programming, production and broadcasting included; Executive Producer for WBZ Radio and Television (Westinghouse Broadcasting Co.) in Boston, Program Director of WLS (ABC) Television in Chicago and eventually as Executive Producer and Program Director of KGO Television in San Francisco. He also, in the late 60's and early 70's, worked as Assistant to the President for W. Clement Stone who created a motivational educational system based on, "P.M.A. - Positive Mental Attitude." W. Clement Stone had been a guest on a morning talk show my Dad produced and liked my Dad so much he offered him a job!

Jim knew and worked with an eclectic list of notables that included Phil Donahue, Gore Vidal, W. Clement Stone, John F. Kennedy, Alfred Hitchcock, Phyllis Diller, Frank Zappa, Gregory Peck, Richard Nixon, and even the Beatles.

One of his finest achievements and something he was most proud of was his work as satellite architect of the international Live Aid Concert in 1985. He also did Farm Aid I and II, Comic Relief and other specials. In the last few years of his life he worked creating and designing internet web sites.

I found this on the internet, written by a college friend of my father's talking about their early radio days on campus at Ohio University. On page one, near the bottom, there is a picture of my Dad but more importantly (At least to me! LOL) at the top of page two (see the link below) there is my favorite publicity photo of my Dad. My Dad was movie star handsome - really, please take a look at the top of page two to see how "dreamy" he was - no wonder my mother fell in love with him!! The paragraph below (My Dad's middle name is Dockray - yes, seriously) so he was known as "Doc" in college. You can read a little more about him on page two at the following link:

http://www.donswaim.com/WOUB2.html

"Theta Chi's kitchen steward was James "Doc" T**erson, of Dayton, who hosted a music show on WOUB called "Prescription: Music." Often, when I awoke in the morning, I'd find breakfast on my dresser, coffee and juice and Danish. Doc would cross the backyard from his kitchen and leave the food in my room, a casual act of magnanimity that still touches me. Doc, tall and movie star handsome, possessed a degree of maturity that I lacked, and in many ways he helped me to temper some of my post-adolescent abrasiveness that so frequently alienated my peers. I was best man at Doc's wedding in Charleston, West Virginia, where he was working at WKAZ, sister station to WSAZ in Huntington, where I was working. He was later hired as the producer of a well-known television talk show, Bob Kennedy's "Contact," which was aired by Westinghouse out of WBZ in Boston, and, years later toward the end of his broadcast career, was program director of KGO in San Francisco." (con't)

In addition to his communications career my father could sing - beautifully - and was an actor. Regardless of what he was doing for a living or what job he held at the time, the reality was, he was a born performer. As you can imagine from the photo on the link he was always cast as the suave, debonair leading man. No doubt about it, he was the Cary Grant of community theater!

A few years ago my Dad made a couple of CD's recording many of the songs he sung in musical theater. I will always treasure that I can hear his distinctive voice. I believe at one time in college and early in his career my Dad was even known as "The Voice." He had that "Radio Voice," in the truest sense of radio, on-air fashion.

Of course right now the silence of that voice is deafening.

Jim is survived by his wife Kim and son Brent, his children from a previous marriage, Jaime and James T**erson and Terri S**clair, his mother Jane Smith T**erson of Dayton, OH, his sister Leslie Perkins of Boulder, CO., six grandchildren, his sister-in-law Joyce of Mt. Juliet, TN., a son-in-law and a daughter-in-law, aunts, an uncle, nieces, nephews and many cousins. He was predeceased by his father James and his brother.

A memorial service will be held at St. Monica's church in Santa Monica, California on February 23rd at 10:00 AM. In lieu of flowers it was Jim's request that donations be made to the American Cancer Society.