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58 SHAKERONLINE.COM | SPRING 2016 10seconds Bibb was born in Alabama, but raised in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, where his parents settled when he was a year old. His passion for journalism developed early. “In sixth grade, I wrote the school’s graduation play,” he says. This was at Miles Standish Elementary School (now Michael R. White School). “I had a teacher, Mr. Robert Taylor, who helped me write the play. On graduation day, he told me, ‘You have a talent and if I were you, I’d think about a career where you can write.’” “I call that the ten seconds that changed my life,” adds Bibb. Bibb graduated from Glenville High School in 1962 and then from Bowling Green State University in 1966 with a degree in journalism. Shortly thereafter, he was hired as a reporter for The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Then came the Vietnam War. Bibb was drafted, served with the 4th Infantry Division, and was awarded a Bronze Star, which he still wears on his lapel. It was during his time in Vietnam that Bibb decided he wanted to go into broadcast journalism. “I watched the television news reporters who were over there and I thought, ‘I can do that.’ Believe it or not, I applied to graduate school from the jungle of Vietnam and the letter of acceptance came to Vietnam.” After his tour ended, Bibb and his wife, Marguerite – the two were college sweethearts who married while Bibb was in basic training – returned to Toledo, so Bibb could pursue a master’s degree at Bowling Green. But he never graduated. While working at Bowling Green’s television station, Bibb caught the attention of executives at Toledo’s CBS affiliate, WTOL, and they offered him a job. “I did everything but the thesis,” says Bibb, who in 1996 was appointed to Bowling Green’s Board of Trustees by then Ohio Governor George Voinovich, eventually serving as chairman. While at WTOL, a chance encounter brought about Bibb’s next career move. “I’m driving along West Bancroft Street,” he says. “I’ve got a camera in the back seat because in those days, I’m the reporter and the photographer. A oneman band. I see this guy hitchhiking and I passed him. I felt guilty about it because it was a really cold day. I recognized his face, but I did not know his name. I drove for about a mile, then made a u-turn and went back and picked him up.” “He got in the car and he said, ‘You’re Leon Bibb from Channel 11. My girlfriend’s mother wondered what happened to you. You should give her a call.’” Turns out, his passenger was talking about the director of community affairs for WCMH, the NBC affiliate in Columbus, where Bibb had applied for a job while still a graduate student at Bowling Green. Bibb called her that evening and learned the station had an opening in its newsroom. Not long after, he was on a Greyhound bus to Columbus (thanks to a dead battery in his Volkswagen Bug). “And three weeks from the day of the interview I was on the air.” It was in Columbus that Bibb first sat in the anchor chair, initially as co-anchor with longtime Columbus newsman Hugh Demoss, then solo as the station’s weekend anchor. Then, in 1976, Bibb was promoted to anchor WCMH’s weeknight evenings news, making him one of just a handful of African Americans nationwide sitting in the anchor chair of the prime-time news broadcast. “I’ve been anchoring a newscast ever since then,” says Bibb. “With the exception of maybe two years.” Bibb made broadcast history again, when in 1986 he became Cleveland’s first African-American prime-time news anchor. This was at WKYC Channel 3. Bibb had returned home to Cleveland and to WKYC as a reporter and weekend anchor in 1979, settling in Shaker Heights with his family, which by then included two young daughters, Alison and Jennifer. “Growing up in Cleveland, I was always in and out of Shaker Heights and it has a wonderful school system,” says Bibb, who lives in the Sussex neighborhood. “We’ve been there for 36 years and now we’ve got grandchildren in the system.” Moreover, Bibb’s son-in-law, William Clawson, who’s married to daughter Jennifer, is president of the Shaker Schools Board of Education. Bibb was lured away to WEWS in 1995 to anchor the weeknight evening news, while also continuing to work as a reporter (which he’s done his entire career). In 2012, Bibb shifted to the noon broadcast, while also continuing to host and narrate a variety of shows and series for the station, like “My Ohio” and “Kaleidoscope.”


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