Longtime broadcast and cable executive owner Donald Outland McDougald passed away unexpectedly Dec. 22 in a Brunswick, Ga., hospital after a brief attack. McDougald, whose home is in Montreat, North Carolina, was visiting with relatives and friends in Darien at the time. The 83-year-old Statesboro native was born in 1927 and attended Clemson University before joing the Army. After service in World War II, where he was assigned as part of the planned Japanese homeland invasion force, McDougald returned to Emory and graduated from its School of Business. The end of the war in the Pacific Theatre with the Hiroshima/Nagasaki atomic bombs led to a cancellation of the invasion, of which he would have been a part. He remained in Japan for some time as a member of the occupation forces.

In 1958 he joined with his mother and brothers, Horace and Worth, and purchased Radio Station WWNS. Soon, he purchased the full facilities of the station from the other family members and instituted the building of FM Radio Station WMCD, which, with WWNS, he operated until his retirement from active broadcasting. In addition, he owned and operated radio stations in Sylvania, Milledgeville and in Danville, Virginia. He organized and brought into being a partnership of local entrepreneurs in Statesboro to form Statesboro’s first cable company, Statesboro CATV, Inc. He is credited with having what some describe as the “first automated broadcast station in Georgia”, utilizing early-on IBM card sort machines that he became familiar with at the Georgia Teachers College bookkeeping operations. He adapted them to building the daily logs for WWNS and WMCD. Later on, as computers were developed and became available, he moved his stations further into that area.

Don was president of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters at the time of the unexpected death of the executive director, and in order to keep the nation’s largest state broadcasters organization fully active, found it necessary to work many days in Atlanta. He learned to fly at Statesboro’s airport so that he might get to and from Atlanta somewhat easier than driving on two-lane roads the 450-mile round-trip. For this work, Don was named to the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame at the University of Georgia.

Don was extremely active in various civic endeavors in the community, including his presidency of the Statesboro Rotary Club and his work with the Chamber of Commerce, the Jaycees and with various sports activities of Georgia Teachers College and local high schools. He was a leader with the Georgia Rotary Student Program, which offered scholarships for visiting college level students from other countries, developed after WWII when many schools and universities in war-torn cities were not available to their native youth. In return, he and Betty visited the students in numerous foreign countries to renew acquaintances.

Memorial contributions may be made to the First Presbyterian Church of Darien Building Fund at P.O. Box 706, Darien, GA 31305; the Don and Betty McDougald Land Conservation Fund, c/o Montreat Cottagers, Inc. Attn.: Philip Arnold, P.O. Box 111, Montreat, NC 28757; or Bulloch County Historical Society, P.O. Box 42, Statesboro, GA 30459. Friends may sign the online register book at www.joineranderson.com.

(Photo courtesy of the Darien News: Donald McDougald, right, won this painting by Roland Thurston, center, and looking on is chairman for Art in the Park, Margaret Olsen at Art in the Park in April 2009.)