Friday, January 15, 2021

Charlie Harville spotlight in Greensboro Newspaper (1962)


Thanks to Mark Eastridge who passed this along to us. This was a notice about time changes of WFMY channel 2 (Greensboro) news and sports reports in February of 1962. 

A few years before Harville became so closely associated with professional wrestling in the area with his move to WGHP, he had some major wrestling mements, including interviewing NWA World Heavyweight Champion "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers on his WFMY "Sports Final" show, the program mentioned in the newspaper piece above.

Harville would move to WGHP channel 8 in October of 1963 as sports director of the new station in High Point, NC (same Greensboro market), and would begin hosting Championship Wrestling in February of 1964. The program was a production of WGHP and was  syndicated to a few other TV markets in the Mid-Atlantic area as well before the consolidation of Crockett TV production and distribution to WRAL in Raleigh in 1974.

"Harville was as much an icon as the wrestlers for those of us growing up in the Greensboro/Winston Salem/High Point area in the sixties & seventies," Mark said in his email. 

Harville's show on WGHP promoted live events in that market, including the main towns of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Lexington, plus other spots shows in the area.  

For more on Charlie Harville's rich legacy in Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, check out Wayne Brower's lengthy piece on the Mid-Atlantic Gateway: Charlie Harville: Remembering His Remarkable Journey.