Dave Mitchell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James David Mitchell (b. 1947 in Wichita Falls, Texas) better known as "Dave Mitchell" is an American radio personality and voice-over artist who has appeared on over 100 radio stations in Texas, Mississippi, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and is currently heard on Sirius Satellite Radio.
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[edit] Life and career
Mitchell, who grew up in Chillicothe, Garland, Dallas and Lewisville, Texas, graduated in 1966 from Lewisville High School and in 1967 from the Elkins Institute of Radio and Electronics in Dallas, where Rush Limbaugh was a classmate. A "jack-of-all-trades" in broadcasting, he began his broadcasting career at KEIR-FM (now KDMX-FM) 102.9 in Dallas. He served as a disc jockey, news anchor, news reporter, sportscaster, talk show host, broadcast executive and broadcast engineer at various stations during the first 18 years of his 42-year career (as of December 2007).
In 1984 he became an airborne traffic reporter for Traffic Patrol Broadcasting, giving live traffic reports on over two dozen stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. During the 1980s and 90's he also broadcast on over a dozen stations in Charlotte, North Carolina. He has also been heard on all 40 English-language stations in Miami-Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the only known person to have done this. For 11 years he was part of the number-one rated "James T. Morning Show" on WEDR-FM 99.1 in Miami. This was following Traffic Patrol Broadcasting's purchase by Metro Traffic Control in 1990. Today Metro Traffic Control is known as "Metro Networks/Shadow Broadcast Services" and is owned by CBS Radio's Westwood One. In addition to traffic broadcasting, Mitchell also is currently a news anchor for KVCE-AM 1160 and WRR-FM 101.1 in Dallas. His traffic reports are also currently heard on popular Dallas stations KKDA-FM 104.5, KRNB-FM 105.7, KKDA-AM 730 and on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 157, broadcasting traffic information for the Phoenix area.
In addition to his broadcasting duties, Mitchell worked as an audio production engineer for Zig Ziglar Corporation from 1980-82. Mitchell served from 1986 to 1987 as National Director of Operations for Traffic Patrol Broadcasting, overseeing broadcast operations in Charlotte, Miami, West Palm Beach, Raleigh, Mobile, New Orleans, Dallas and Greensboro-Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Married with three children and four grandchildren, Mitchell currently resides in Lewisville, Texas.
[edit] News reporting, sportscasting and commercials
In 1977, while serving as News Director for KROZ-FM and KZEY-AM in Tyler, Texas, he covered the famous capital murder trial of Kerry Max Cook, reporting from the Smith County courthouse, sitting in on the trial. In 1984 Mitchell reported from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, specifically covering the South Carolina delegation for WGCA-AM in Charleston, South Carolina. He has also reported from the midst of two of America's most historic hurricanes, Hugo in 1989 and Andrew in 1992. While in Charlotte in the late 1980s Mitchell broadcast dozens of reports for CBS radio on the collapse of Jim and Tammy Bakker's PTL empire. He reported for CBS the expansion of the National Basketball Association in 1988. He has also served as a voice-over and public address announcer for various projects including film narration for the Texas Department of Health.
Mitchell broadcast ten seasons of football play-by-play and three seasons of NCAA Division-I basketball. He also has done NAIA college baseball play-by-play and auto racing public address announcing. He spent several seasons announcing play-by-play for high school basketball. From 1988 to 1990 he covered the NBA Charlotte Hornets for CBS radio and also covered the NBA Miami Heat for WQAM-AM 560. He worked as a sideline reporter for TalkAmerica, covering the NFL Miami Dolphins in the early 1990s. He also reported daily from the Dolphin's training camp for WQAM-AM. In 1975 he covered Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers for KEAN-AM.
During his disc jockey days (1966-1984) it is estimated Mitchell produced and voiced over 30,000 recorded 30- and 60- second radio commercials for a wide variety of products and companies, including Wal-Mart, McDonalds, General Motors, Microsoft, ChevronTexaco, the National Football League and American Airlines. He has also appeared in a number of television commercials in Charlotte for a local Ford dealership. In 23 years as a traffic reporter Mitchell has broadcast hundreds of thousands of traffic reports, most with live commercials. He broadcast his 300,000th traffic report on October 23, 2007 with a 2:05 p.m. report on KVCE-AM.
[edit] Other activities and awards
Mitchell is a federally-licensed broadcast engineer and has served as Director of Engineering for Metro Networks bureaus in Miami, West Palm Beach and Dallas, and has also been an engineer at numerous radio and television stations in Texas. He is an Extra Class amateur radio operator with the call sign AJ5F.
Besides broadcasting, Mitchell is a licensed and ordained evangelical minister and has served as a bi-vocational pastor and associate pastor at several churches. He has authored two theological books: Challenged to Investigate and The Beginner's End. He is an alumnus of International Bible College of San Antonio, Moody Bible Institute, Howard Payne University, Tarleton State University, New Covenant International (NCIU) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Mitchell also was a teacher for NCIU, teaching courses in apologetics, church history, and Old Testament.
Mitchell has also had several business interests over the years, including part ownership of a credit reporting service and a home remodeling company. In his career Mitchell has received broadcasting awards from the Radio and Television News Directors Association of Texas and AIR (Awards in Radio).
