Radio has always been FUN for Club member Camille Bohannon

National Press Club Broadcast Committee member Camille Bohannon lived in eight countries before she was 18-years-old and mastered four languages. When it came time for college, she landed in Las Vegas, N.M., (near Santa Fe), where she worked at the local cable TV operation and radio station KFUN.

In a community steeped in Hispanic heritage, those call letters equaled "Que-FUN" which translated to "What Fun!" and, that's what Camille thought about broadcasting. What fun!

She went from describing a homecoming parade on that New Mexico cable outlet as a teenager to being the only female announcer describing the 1976 Bicentennial Parade in downtown Washington.

In between, there were diversions. After college she moved to Washington to be with her parents -- world travelers thanks to the State Department. She was a research director for a company she said "invented" recycling. She was a security officer for Sears. She was a State Department passport adjudicator, deciding who got citizenship documents.

But, it was radio work that was fun, so she gravitated to an all-night DJ job at Washington's WWDC. A certain Jim Bohannon was in the Army, stationed in Manassas, Va. He heard her and made contact. They met, they married and the rest became broadcast history.

Jim got a job at WTOP doing news and Camille was invited to join him doing the morning drive news show. But WTOP owner Katherine Graham who ran the parent Washington Post Company, decreed that no married couple could be on the air. So, Camille became "Laura Walters," also reporting for CBS News.

The next step in her career, Bohannon told the May meeting of the Club's Broadcast Committee, was about a mile away at WRC, which, like WTOP, went all-news. They offered the couple a job where they could be ‘’The Bohannons." Camille and Jim parlayed that into a higher paying offer from all-news WCFL radio in Chicago, a larger market. Unfortunately, WCFL dropped the all-news format. WCFL was part of the Mutual Broadcasting System and Jim was the backup for talkmeister Larry King's Mutual late night radio show. Mutual moved Jim back to D.C.

Camille also returned to Washington, where over the next 20-plus years, she either anchored or reported for the radio news networks of NBC, MUTUAL, UPI and AP Broadcast and then in 2008, she retired, ending four decades in broadcasting.

She does voiceover work and narrations, but the freedom from a regular gig allows her more time to use her voice in choirs in her Montgomery County, Md., neighborhood. One of those choirs will perform in June at a cathedral in London and on July 4th -- 40 years after her Bicentennial Parade assignment -- she will be singing patriotic songs at the U.S. World War II Cemetery at Normandy, France.

Club Broadcast Committee members have been taking turns telling their stories at the committee's monthly meetings, usually at noon on the first Thursday or the month. All Club members can join the committee, which endeavors to make sure broadcasters and their work are part of the Club's fabric.

To join the committee, contact Chairman Mark Hamrick at [email protected]