KTLO Features

We'll Miss You Jim!

click on the picture to enlarge

We'll Miss You Jim!

    Jim Bodenhamer, pictured, visited this morning with Bob Knight and Brad Haworth on the KTLO 97.9 Morning Show. Also joining in the fun by phone was Bodenhamer's wife Julie Stewart and daughter Allie.
    Bodenhamer, a 1965 graduate of Mountain Home High School and a 1969 graduate of ASU, began his journalism career as an Army information officer from 1969 to 1971. He joined The Baxter Bulletin in 1972 as a reporter and then associate editor.   In 1977 he was hired at KTLO becoming news director in 1981. He served in that position until 2010. During that tenure the station won numerous journalism awards. Bodenhamer, who is 65, has continued to work as a reporter until his retirement which is effective today.
    During his reporting tenure the Baxter County native has covered a number of major stories including the efforts to replace the Lake Norfork ferries with the current bridges, the growth of the area, the 1985 siege of the compound in northern Marion County of the survivalist group known of the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm (CSA) of the Lord, a couple of historic flooding events in 1982 and again in 2008, helped direct the station's local coverage of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attack and the devastating 2009 ice storm that hit the area.
     In addition, the county native has covered hundreds of area city council and school board meetings as well as court proceedings including several high profile civil and criminal trials including the Nellie Mitchell civil lawsuit against The Sun tabloid and the notorious murder/kidnapping trial of Patsy Queen Mathews.
      He is married to former local and Associated Press reporter Julie Stewart who is now coordinator of volunteers at the Donald W. Reynolds Library in Mountain Home.