Cy Bahakel

He was a member of the Democratic Party. His son-in-law is former US Representative Robert Pittenger (R-NC).

Bahakel was born to a poor Lebanese family in Birmingham, Alabama on April 12, 1919. He helped pay his way through University of Alabama School of Law by doing sports play-by-play and other announcing duties at Tuscaloosa's WJRD radio, a sideline that made him question his goals to become a lawyer. He practiced law for six months, but the lure of the microphone was too strong. He and a friend put up $12,500 each and launched WKOZ, a radio station in Kosciusko, Mississippi. Within a year, Bahakel bought out his partner and found that one of the best investments in business was an hour spent talking to customers over a cup of coffee. He went on to build radio stations from scratch in Greenwood, Mississippi, Kingsport, Tennessee, and Roanoke, Virginia. One of his larger-market radio purchases was WDOD-FM, Chattanooga and its now-defunct counterpart, WDOD, and later WDEF and WDEF-FM, also Chattanooga, all still owned by Bahakel Communications. As the era of television dawned in the 1950s, Bahakel tried his hand in this new fad as well, and founded WABG-TV in Greenwood, the Mississippi Delta's first TV station, in 1959. Bahakel later acquired stations in Charlotte, North Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina (WCCA-TV), and Montgomery, Alabama.

Bahakel was instrumental in bringing the Charlotte Hornets National Basketball Association franchise to Charlotte in 1987. He was a primary investor in the team and was the guarantor of the $32 million loan for the franchise fee to bring the team to Charlotte.

Bahakel ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970, losing to incumbent Republican Charles R. Jonas.[1]