More Highlights for Bill Armstrong

• Bill Armstrong

  First News Director at WRAL-TV

• 1964 Election coverage on WRAL-TV

  Bill Armstrong, Sam Beard and Scottie Stephenson on set election night at WRAL-TV.

• Man on the Moon

  In 1963, WRAL News director and anchor Bill Armstrong landed an interview with NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong, no relation, at the Morehead Planetarium in Chapel Hill. Neil Armstrong and other astronauts were there January 28-30, 1963 learning about celestial navigation.
• Bill Armstrong WRAL First News Director

  Watch and listen to WRAL News anchor David Crabtree’s conversation with Bill Armstrong, WRAL-TV’s first News Director. Armstrong held that role 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 “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. That interview can be seen on this website titled “WRAL News Director Bill Armstrong interviews astronaut Neil Armstrong.” Bill Armstrong died March 30, 2005 at the age of 80.

• Through the viewfinder

  WRAL-TV News Director Bill Armstrong delivering the news as seen through old camera viewfinder