Gift of gab

Dunbar likes to engage people in their opinions and have in-depth discussions about current events. His most current endeavor with this is the Opinion Exchange; a forum that travels to senior centers around the Peninsula. The forum focuses on getting seniors to kick around what is going on in the world today.

"It's like a talk show," said Dunbar as he compared it to his radio days. "The advantage we have here is there is a room full of people."

For most of Dunbar's illustrious career as the father of news talk, he wasn't able to engage people face to face but instead over the airwaves.

Dunbar's career as a radio man began in 1949 when, while working as a waiter at a local sorority house at Michigan State, he got into a conversation with a roommate about finding another line of work. His roommate suggested he try out for the college radio station, which was holding auditions. He landed a spot.

"I saw the excitement of others [in the radio station]," said Dunbar. "I had to get a taste of this."

Inspired, he decided to make a go at a career in radio and ended up with a degree in journalism. This did not settle too well with his father however, because he came from a family of engineers.

Dunbar didn't see himself fitting into the mold though, saying he was reminded of an old statement his father had once made about him and his brother.

"You can take it apart, but Bill can put it together again."

Shortly after graduating, Dunbar ended up in the military, where he served two years in Fort Riley, Kansas. He continued to work on the airwaves, taking his weekends to record programming at a nearby station.

After he got out, Dunbar returned to Lansing, Michigan, followed by time spent at radio stations in Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans and finally San Francisco, where he joined the KGO staff as program director in 1963.

Dunbar, before accepting the position, had come for an interview and to hear what the station was playing.

"The station [KGO] was in triple terrible trouble," said Dunbar. "No listeners. The format - everything was not working. It was terrible."

Dunbar, so keen on getting KGO on its feet he was "willing to fail trying," heard another station doing something similar to news talk, only on mundane topics like gardening instead of the news of the day. He copied the format and unleashed it in June of '63 to acceptable results.

An event which changed American history later that same year changed the news talk format forever. In November 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, stopping most people in their tracks and getting them to turn to others to discuss this most terrible of tragedies.

"It was a moment of epiphany where everything was changed thereafter," said Dunbar. "We went to desperately serious discussions from then on … entertainment was now in the past tense."

Dunbar spent the next 12 years of his life manning the news booth as historical events such as Vietnam, the birth of the civil rights and feminist movements, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. rolled by. It was at the tail end of this run that Dunbar almost became part of this infamous part of history himself.

As Dunbar was sitting in his broadcast booth concluding an interview for his morning talk show on Sept. 28, 1973, 25-year-old Lawrence Kwong entered the radio station and began shooting at Dunbar from the other side of the booth. He fired three shots, all of which were deflected by the glass. Kwong then exited the building, shooting and killing a KGO advertising executive, before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide.

This event, coupled with the constant emotional strain of talking about hot topics, proved to be the turning point for Dunbar. He stepped down from news talk in 1974 and began hosting the morning news, as well a brief run as the anchor for KGO-TV's nightly news. He finally retired from broadcasting altogether in October 2002.

Dunbar said he still misses some elements of his radio days, especially when breaking news is being reported.

These days he plays tennis, is "obsessed with" pocket billiards and is involved in several societal activities. One is acting as a host for the Sunday Jazz Society, which promotes traditional jazz concerts in private settings, while another is being an honorary judge at the Hillsborough Concours d'Elegance, an annual classic car show.

In the vein of the classic car show, he also enjoys driving and tinkering with vintage automobiles at his home in Hillsborough. His current is a 1929 Model A Standard Roadster, though in the past he has also had a 1953 Triumph TR3 and a 1932 Duesenberg, among other cars.

His Opinion Exchange, though, continues to be his favorite activity.

"It's very fulfilling to me," said Dunbar.