The Guilford County Board of Commissioners plans to honor the life of one of the county’s best loved broadcasters: Lee Kinard.
At the board’s Thursday, Nov. 15 meeting the commissioners will adopt a resolution honoring the newscaster.
Kinard worked in radio in Albemarle, North Carolina, until April 1956, when he came to Greensboro’s WFMY-TV and created the now famous Good Morning Show. For decades after that, Kinard was the man Greensboro and Guilford County woke up to and got their news from.
Kinard died last month and the resolution to be adopted states that “Guilford County lost a giant” with his passing. It also states that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners “recognizes Lee William Kinard, Jr. for his many years of continued service to Guilford County and his many contributions to Greensboro, and the greater Guilford County community, and extends its deepest condolences to the Kinard family.”
Kinard served in the Army as the chief of the Radio and TV Section during the Korean War and the resolution notes that Kinard was very proud of having participated in the Army’s atomic weapons maneuvers.
Kinard attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in English as well as a doctorate in education.
In addition to his work in broadcasting, he wrote three books and served as the executive assistant to the president of Guilford Technical Community College, where he helped create the Larry Gatlin School of Entertainment Technology.
Kinard was admitted into the Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame and he was a recipient of the Silver Service Award presented by the National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences. The award he was said to be the most proud of, however, was the Unsung Hero Award, from the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, which is the most recent reward he received.