By Greg Halbleib
BLOOMINGTON – A long-time WJBC voice is quiet.
Don Newberg died Monday night. As news director, Newberg often demonstrated his commitment to the community, including spending many consecutive hours behind the WJBC microphone during the blizzard of 1967 while simply considering it part of his job.
“You have a responsibility, you have to accept the responsibility and you’ve got to perform as best you can,” Newberg reflected for WJBC’s 80th anniversary in 2004.
Former WJBC general manager Dick Johnson was a long-time friend, and said no one was a stranger to Newberg.
“Don Newberg was the salt of the earth,” Johnson said. “He had no false pride. He was what he was. There was nothing about his that wasn’t genuine.”
Johnson said Newberg was quick yet thorough in the WJBC newsroom.
“He would get to the station about 30 seconds before he was to go on air, and he would sit down and he’d have things written down on little scraps of paper, a matchbook, and he would have his top coat on and start doing the news,” Johnson remembered with a chuckle. “He didn’t even get there in time to take his coat off.”
Newberg also recalled in 2004 about the creativity used to cover the funeral procession of Bloomington native Adlai Stevenson in 1965.
“We only had a limited amount of mobile units,” Newberg said. “So we had to set up a phone system where we put people in businesses, people on top of houses, and we set it up where we would go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 as the procession moved.”
Johnson said Newberg was respected in the station and in the community.
“He was the type of guy who didn’t know a stranger and always had a friendly hello,” Johnson remembered.
Newberg hosted the long-running Problems and Solutions on WJBC from 1960 to 1967 in addition to his duties as news director. Funeral arrangements for Newberg are available here.
Greg Halbleib can be reached at greg@wjbc.com.
