J. Allison “Al” Binford Jr.

J. Allison (Al) Binford, Jr. began his pioneering career in public broadcasting at Chicago’s WTTW in 1956, and went on to write, produce, direct, and appear in programs that helped to form and develop the present-day Public Broadcasting System.  In a career that extended from the 1950s to the 1990s, Al met presidents, dignitaries and celebrities, won numerous awards, and made a difference in the lives of viewers and communities throughout the nation.

Al was born in 1930 in Long Beach, California, where his father was a deep-sea fisherman and on-board bookkeeper for a canning company.  When the company went out of business during the Great Depression, the family moved to Aurora, Illinois, to live with grandparents Emma and Orrin Roe Jenks.  Mr. Jenks was president of Aurora College from 1911, when he moved the school from Mendota to Aurora, until 1933, when he became president emeritus.

Al was raised on Calumet Avenue near the college and attended Freeman School and West High School, graduating in 1948.  While in high school, he was president of the freshman class, played basketball all four years, was a member of the National Honor Society, and discovered his flair for the English language through teachers Marian Winteringham, Oleda Rislow, and Louise Lane.

Al attended the University of Chicago, graduating with a B.A. in Liberal Arts in 1951.  It was the height of the Korean War, and he volunteered for the draft.  His tour of duty took him from Camp Gordon, Georgia, to Fort Hood, Texas, where he was an instructor in the Third Armored Division Signal School, and finally to the Kure Signal code center in suburban Hiroshima, Japan, where he served as a cryptographer until the end of the Korean War.

Back in the states, Al continued his studies at the University of Chicago with an emphasis on the American novel and creative writing.  He was on the basketball and baseball teams, and president of his fraternity.  In the summer before his final exams and writing his master’s thesis, Al took a job driving a cab.  On his night off, he bumped into a friend who was leaving a job in the mailroom at WTTW and urged Al to apply for the position.  He started work the next day, quickly discovered his life’s calling, and embarked on a twenty-eight year career in public broadcasting.

After two years of working on the WTTW production crew as floor manager, assistant director and director of non-live programming and IDs, Al moved to WMVS, Channel 10, in Milwaukee as a producer/director and writer.  There he produced and directed groundbreaking instructional programs for the Milwaukee Public Schools and the Milwaukee Archdiocese.  He was also host of the “Children’s Fair” daily program for youngsters.  As a result, National Educational Television recruited him to host their “What’s New” series, which aired across the country on the NET/PBS network.  At that time, “What’s New” formed the network’s daily children’s programming block with “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “The Friendly Giant.”  It was in Milwaukee where Al married Lois Deckow, a teacher, and their daughter Laurel was born.

Al returned to WTTW in 1963 to supervise and produce local children’s and public affairs programming, rising to Executive Producer for Public Affairs.  A year after returning to Chicago, daughter Erin was born.

At WTTW, Al conceived and produced the teenage talk show, “Our Two Cents Worth,” and recruited the host, Lois Brooks.  Both he and Lois won Emmys for the program.  Al also received the Chicago Area Council Boy Scouts of America Award for Excellence for producing and appearing with Lois on “Den Mothers Workshop” on WTTW and WLS, Channel 7.

During his years at WTTW, Al produced “The Battered Child” for PBS, the first national documentary on child abuse.  His other documentaries included:  “The Urgent Quest of Stuart Struever” on the Northwestern University archeologist’s attempts to preserve the Cahokia Indian Mounds; “Regional Report” on Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Empire; and “The New Morality and Contemporary Situational Ethics.”  Al also wrote, produced, and directed the PBS feature film, “Stand Up for Counting,” about two teenage boys, one black and one white, confronted by racial values in America. 

With “What’s New” airing on every PBS station in America five days a week from 1962 through 1973, Al Binford and Mr. Rogers were the two most visible personalities on national public television.  Because of his presence as host and producer for local and national programming, Al was among several dignitaries invited by President Lyndon Johnson to the White House for the signing ceremony of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.