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Radio DJ's life traveled many paths

Best known for his popular show in Nashville, Bill Jenkins pursued a variety of interestsand adventure.

By MARTY CLEAR
Published May 26, 2006

But the people who knew him best said he was much more than a disc jockey.

"I wouldn't describe Bill as a Renaissance man, but more as a man with many - albeit some short-lived - interests,'' said his wife, Kathy Good Jenkins.

"Bill was an artist, a radio personality, a sailor, pilot, golfer, salsa chef, ham radio operator, handyman, daredevil, emergency response volunteer, cartoonist, musician, actor, animal lover, world traveler and single-malt scotch aficionado."

For the past two decades, Mr. Jenkins worked at a Tampa law firm, starting as a pilot and becoming the firm's creative director. He died May 2 from a heart attack at age 65.

Mr. Jenkins was born and raised in Carthage, Tenn., and took an interest in radio at an early age. He had his own show on a Nashville radio station while he was still in high school and would walk several miles to the station after school every day.

He joined the Army after high school and was stationed in Anchorage, Alaska, where he worked for Armed Forces Radio. By the mid 1960s, he was back in Nashville working in broadcast.

He was a weatherman on a local TV station and later became a traffic reporter for a radio station.

In his second stint in Nashville, he entered college at Middle Tennessee State University and married his first wife. They had two sons, Geoff and Chris.

He also hosted a popular morning radio show. One of the characters he portrayed on the show was Lillard Fingers, and Mr. Jenkins decided to have Fingers run for governor.

"His slogan was, 'You can count on your Fingers,' " Kathy Good Jenkins said. "He actually got some votes."

Mr. Jenkins had on-the-air radio jobs in California and Deland before he came to Tampa and became program director of WQYK in the early 1980s.

One night after work and divorced from his first wife, he went out for drinks with some colleagues.

Afterward, he walked one of them, Kathy Good, to her car. "He said, 'You know, I really want to kiss you,' " his wife recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, but I don't want to ruin the friendship.' A couple of months later we ruined the friendship."

The couple married nine years later. They lived in Oakford Park, where he was active in the neighborhood crime watch.

By the mid 1980s, Mr. Jenkins had tired of radio work and responded to a newspaper ad from a law firm seeking a handyman and pilot.

He took the job with Alley and Alley, which became the firm Ford Harrison.

At the time of his death, he was the firm's creative director and used his skills as an artist and cartoonist to prepare PowerPoint presentations that lawyers used in training seminars and occasionally in court. He also occasionally contributed cartoons published in City Times.

He had some relatively minor cardiac and circulatory problems but was still in good health. He even worked the day he died.

But that night, he went to bed about 10 p.m. and suffered a heart attack.

"Eight minutes later he was gone," she said. "He would have wanted to die fast. That's my consolation, if I have any consolation at all. He had a wonderful life."

In addition to his wife and two sons, Mr. Jenkins is survived by his mother, two sisters and five grandchildren.

[Last modified May 25, 2006, 15:44:46]