“Bill Bonds. He did it His Way!”

Bill Bonds

“Bill Bonds. He did it His Way!”

(Saying farewell to a Detroit Broadcasting Legend)

By Glenn Peppers 12-13-14

Longtime Detroit broadcast legend Bill Bonds passed away at his home Saturday December 13th, at roughly around 4pm from cardiac arrest. He was 81 years old. One thing is real and true. The retired WXYZ Channel 7 news anchor, and journalist was the type of broadcaster you either loved him or you couldn't stand him! I won't use the word hate! The word hate doesn't factor in on the likes of someone like Bill Bonds. You may not have liked everything he said often time. But one things for sure. Bill Bonds demanded your respect! Especially for his work! 

Sure you could sometimes love him like a long lost brother. Or Not! Either way, in the words of recently retired Channel 7 news anchor, Eric Smith, "You always watched him!" 

I write this tribute to Bill Bonds with longtime Detroiters in mine, in that if you’ve ever watched Bond’s at work, you knew what you were going to get! The news as it happens, according to Bill Bonds. In other words, the news as Bill Bonds always presented it!... His Way!

Yes Bill Bonds was arrogant, brash, and an antagonist form way back. Yet Bonds was always set and sure, ready to fight for, and defend his and our Detroit against anyone! I loved his cantankerous on-air battles with Mayor Coleman Young, and loved it when he ran Senator Orin Hatch off of a live satellite hookup interview on a 6pm broadcast!

It was Bill Bonds who sat up with us Detroiters all those long nights, on the air for many distressing hours as Detroit burned during the 1967 riot, back when I was 10 years old. For almost 7 days Bonds was at Broadcast House reporting the news, during the riot here in Detroit, as it happened. No matter what, throughout his career, Bill Bonds always kept a cool head, until he’d sometimes lose it with his impassioned opinions and commentary! And as I said, Bill always read the news, His Way!

Bond’s bigger than life personality was what Detroit media personalities were all about back in the day! Bonds wasn't just a news anchor person. He was an old school, old time broadcaster!... A real News Man! His editorials and commentaries were scathing at times, yet mostly dead on!

Diana Lewis

In 1976, it took the wise, gentle, and totally professional soul of one Diana Lewis to sit by his side as anchor with him for twenty some odd years, to soothe and mellow, (and somewhat tame) the mouth that roared for many a year at the WXYZ anchor desk! As most of you know. A brilliant co-anchor never really stopped Bill Bonds from being uniquely BILL! Yet poor Diana Lewis. She always held her own with Bill. Toe to toe! 

Bill Bonds and Diana Lewis

I felt that no other anchor team member within a hundred miles could have survived and handled Bill Bonds' nightly onslaught of ego, character and identity assaults as well as Diana Lewis did! Still, Bill Bonds and Diana Lewis were the perfect yin and yang in the field of on-air broadcasting! Especially at a time when black women were first coming onto the scene as news anchor team members in the middle 1970’s!

And so another icon in the era of Detroit's golden age of television and one of her original sons has passed on, leaving Detroit one more icon short! Bill Bonds is one of the last of the Detroit’s great public servants, and icons who’ve made this city an interesting and wonderful place to live! Both Bill Bonds and Coleman Young were wonderful strong personalities! Rock solid principled, and always their own men! This is what made them who they were! They demanded the best from everyone around them. Bill Bonds excepted nothing less than your best work, and for you to be able to back it up!

In a city that once boomed and blossomed, and built the best cars the world has ever known. We had one of the best news personalities in the country, right here in our fair town! A town that taught the world what soul and R&B music is really all about! Not many cities could compare with our on air television personalities who've gone on before Bill Bonds. We all remember the likes of Sonny Elliot, or our sports announcer, Al Ackerman and TV2 noon anchor, Beverly Payne and also TV2' Woody Willis. 

Bill Bond's Commentary

Now our mostly often argumentative, and quite frequently ostentatious Bill Bonds has gone and left us! If you lived in Detroit within these last 35 years or so, then you are one of many whom Bill Bonds has touched, in one way or another! We ate dinner watching him at the dinner hour weekdays! We went to bed at night stewing on his commentaries. And we all laughed at the very thought of he and Coleman Young in a boxing match. Of whom Bill challenged Young in a heat of passionate, Billy Bonds style with a burst of that Bill Bonds impulsivity and boldness! Political correctness? I can hear Bill Bonds’ conscious saying, “To the Producers be damned!”

Coleman A. Young and Bill Bonds eating Coney Hotdogs in Downtown Detroit

Personally, I think the picture of Coleman A. Young, and Bill Bonds sharing coney hotdogs in downtown detroit is how I'd like to remember those two!

If you've ever been interested in becoming an on-air broadcaster, you had to have loved Bill Bonds! Grant it, you may not have always agreed with his editorials, or his opinions, but if you were old school Detroit, somehow you understood his rantings and his rage on many subjects! 

If you are a longtime Detroiter, you just couldn't help but like him. Just like Soupy Sales, and Bill Kennedy, Bill Bonds is apart of you! Why? Because Bill Bond was Real People! What you saw in Bonds was what you’d get! No Frills, and no Fluff! Therefore, we watched him, every evening and every night! 

Bill Bonds!... He was Truly One of a Kind! Rest in peace Billy! And as you use to say on many a weekday night around about 11:28pm!... “Good night everyone!”

Glenn Peppers 12-13-14         Updated 12-15-14