"Have I got a deal for you." Remembering Dave Boliek

by Brad Crone, Communications consultant and NC SPIN panelist, December 24, 2018.

In 1978, the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office was located in the southwest corner of the old courthouse. There were a number of offices and the communications room was tucked away along a wall facing the south side of the courthouse. 

Aaron Wood was the retiring Sheriff and there was a hotly contested Sheriff’s primary going on between George Johnson and Clifford Uzzle.

It was a spring afternoon and I was making my usual rounds.  I was a sophomore at Clayton High School and was working for Larry Denning at WHPY AM 1590 as a budding news reporter.  Right after I got my driver’s license in January, I went to work for the local radio station writing news copy.  I had taught myself how to ‘time-out’ radio copy listening to John Cameron Swayze on the NBC Radio News.

So, I had a useful skill at 16 and got a job I truly loved – reporting and writing the news.

That afternoon, I walked into the Sheriff’s Office and said hello to Ricky Creech, the chief dispatcher and Mrs. Mitchell, the secretary and started rifling through the incident reports. I saw this lanky semi-bald fellow standing in the back of the office looking around and waiting to talk to Deputy Ed Daughtry.  I took out my pen and pad and started making notes, went through all the reports, stacked them neatly back in the file holder, put up my pad and pen and started out the door.

The man followed me and in the hall of the courthouse he asked me, “Hey. What are you doing?”

I told him I was a news reporter for the Clayton radio station.  I told him I checked the Sheriff’s Office, Smithfield Police and NC Highway Patrol five to six times a week for our local radio news.

He smiled and said, “Have I Got A Deal for You.”

That’s how I met Dave Boliek, Sr. 

At the time, Dave was the Assignment Editor at WTVD ABC 11 in Durham and he was working to improve relationships with the local law enforcement agencies.  Dave said he needed a “stringer” in Johnston County, which was a slang word for a news correspondent for the television station.

Dave told me he would pay me $25 for every news story that WTVD used on the air.  In 1978, $25 dollars was a lot of money and I knew I would get four to five stories a week out of the county and run on-air.  It was a win-win situation.

Later Dave told Ginny Carroll, the State News Editor at the The News & Observer about me and I ended up stringing for the News & Observer so what started as a $25 a story gig, quickly became a $50 a story gig with The N&O and WTVD paying for the same story – I was double-dipping but no one seemed to care because the two newsrooms had different deadlines.

I worked for Dave Boliek through high school and my first year in college.  He was a tough, crude editor. Often mean and barking orders – but that was the news business then.

In 1984, I went back to work for Dave Boliek when he was the news director at WTPF AM 680.  He was energetic, relentless, and demanding. He was one of the fastest writers I had ever met and was always pushing his staff to write smart and write fast.

At 21, Dave made me the afternoon news editor at WPTF.  I worked hand-in-hand with Chuck Rice, the on-air anchor producing and writing the afternoon news shows. That work experience made me a better writer and taught me so much about interacting with people on very tight deadlines.

I left WPTF in 1985 to join N.C. Ag Commissioner Jim Graham’s staff but remained close with Dave as he went back to ABC 11 as the Chief Capitol Correspondent. In state government at the time, there were two people you never wanted to see telephone messages from, the first was Pat Stith with the N&O and second was Dave Boliek. For the bureaucrats, Dave Boliek could be a big pain in the butt.

When I started the state’s first desktop newspaper with four Macs and two laser writers, Dave encouraged my success at The Clayton Star. As publisher of The Thomasville Times, I was able to return the favor.

When Dave Jr, a student in UNC J School, wanted an internship, I hired him.  I had worked for his father, so I wanted Dave Jr. to work for me.  I think Dave Boliek, Jr. is the only UNC-J School student who won a first-place NC Press Association award for spot news, when he covered a bank robbery for the newspaper in Thomasville.

I never saw the soft side of Dave Boliek, Sr. It was always business and news. He lived that life even when he was working with his venture to wire schools with internet service.

However, we remained friends as our careers went in different paths. 

Dave Boliek taught me the news business. He was a newsman through and through.  He could call out the horse-feathers faster than anyone I ever knew. He saw a young sixteen-year-old kid trying to figure out the news business and he gave me a break. It was the foundation to my success – for that I am always grateful.  That was my mentor – Dave.