Bill Armstrong was WRAL-TV’s first News Director, a role he held from the station’s sign-on in 1956 to 1966.

He was also the station’s primary news anchor, who teamed with sportscaster Ray Reeve and weatherman Bob Knapp to form the first WRAL-TV anchor team.

Armstrong was a native of Salisbury who joined the Army and served on the front lines of World War II in Europe. He was a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a degree in Journalism. Before joining WRAL, he was a reporter at the Raleigh Times.

Armstrong was a “one-man-news operation” in WRAL’s early days, chasing down the news then reporting it himself from the anchor desk. Among the highlights of his WRAL news career was an interview with Neil Armstrong, who was training at UNC-Chapel Hill at the time and later became the first astronaut on the moon. (see an excerpt of that interview here).

Armstrong also provided on-the-scene coverage from the Raleigh-Durham airport when the victorious UNC men’s basketball team returned to North Carolina after winning the 1957 national championship.

Armstrong left WRAL-TV in 1966 for a job as Director of Highway Safety Promotion in the state Motor Vehicles Department. He also worked for North Carolina Citizens for Business and Industry and its North Carolina Magazine.

Bill Armstrong died March 30, 2005 at the age of 80.