Jim Overbay

News Manager (Retired) at Meredith Broadcasting

Degree(s): BJ '59

Whereabouts: United States, Leawood, Kansas

What do you do?
Retired as news manager for Meredith Broadcasting. Previously, news director at KCTV, Kansas City, communications manager at the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, and the assistant news director at KMBC-TV, Kansas City.

How did you get your job?
Perseverance. Contacts. Luck.

What is the best professional lesson you learned at the J-School?
Versatility. The variety of skills I learned at J-School helped open doors. I started in a job related to journalism and later got to do what I wanted to do.

What advice do you have for current students?
Been so long and it’s such a different world, I’m no longer qualified to give advice.

What is your favorite J-School memory?
For the 50th anniversary celebration my girlfriend (later my wife, Linda Bradley, BJ ’59) and I were designated to drive to St. Louis and pick up keynote speaker Chet Huntley of NBC’s Huntley/Brinkley Report and act as his campus hosts during his Columbia stay.

Updated: November 10, 2011