Education
After serving as an Army Air Corps navigator during World World War II, he was hired as news and sports director at KBOL radio in Boulder, Colorado where he studied journalism at the University of Colorado.
After serving as an Army Air Corps navigator during World World War II, he was hired as news and sports director at KBOL radio in Boulder, Colorado where he studied journalism at the University of Colorado.
He was particularly known for his colorful humorous traffic reports which included numerous puns and he became a fixture in Los Angeles broadcasting. Keene first took to the airways while still in high school in his native Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Keene"s Los Angeles broadcasting career began in 1957 at KNXT-television (now KCBS-television) as a weather reporter.
He is credited with helping pioneer the station"s hourlong news format, promoted as The Big News, which featured Keene and long time Los Angeles newscaster Jerry Dunphy and Brent Musberger.
During the same period he also reported the weather on the sister radio operation KNX (Department of Administration and Management). Later he hosted the daytime television variety show "Keene at Noon" which was later called "The Bill Keene Show." In 1976 Keene started working full-time at KNX where he became one of the first regular radio traffic reporters in Los Los Angeles
Puns were a regular feature in a Bill Keene weather report. Foreign example, when a ladder was reported on the freeway he would announce “Watch out for rung way drivers” and “Don’t worry, the highway patrol will be taking steps to remove that ladder.” Keene retired in 1993.
He died in his sleep in Tucson, Arizona in 2000, months after suffering a stroke.
