Ken Bostic

Ken Bostic was a broadcaster from western North Carolina whose career on radio and television spanned several decades in the Carolinas. A native of Rutherford County, he became a familiar face to viewers on both sides of the state line, first at WSPA 7News in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and later as a member of the weather team at WLOS News 13 in Asheville during the 1980s and 1990s.

Bostic began in radio and worked at several local stations. At WSPA he was heard on the station's AM and FM outlets in the 1970s, and he moved into television there, presenting weather and sports. Colleagues from that era later recalled that he was already something of a local icon at the station by the early 1970s.

He then joined WLOS, the ABC affiliate serving Asheville and the mountains of western North Carolina. The station, whose call letters stand for "Wonderful Land Of Sky", has broadcast since 1954 and has long built its identity around its weather coverage, with a line of well known forecasters stretching back to the late 1950s. Archive footage from the station's "Count on 13" years shows him delivering forecasts alongside anchors Ken Owen and Darcel Grimes, meteorologist Bob Caldwell and sportscaster Chip Tarkenton. In one surviving newscast from 23 December 1987 he presented the Christmas forecast. In a region where mountain weather can turn quickly, the station's forecasters were a trusted part of daily life, and Bostic remained a recognisable name to longtime viewers long after he left the air.

Away from the weather map, Bostic was an avid golfer. His love of the game carried into his broadcasting work, and he served on the radio broadcast team at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. Viewers in the Spartanburg area also remembered him as a public address announcer at high school basketball games.

WLOS announced on 11 October 2026 that Bostic had died at the age of 80, describing him as a member of the News 13 family. The station did not report the date, place or cause of his death, and no funeral arrangements had been published at that time.