LEXINGTON, Va. – People are sharing their love for Pat Robertson, the televangelist who started the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Robertson passed away Thursday, at 93.
A correspondent for CBN News who is also from Bedford County, Jennifer Wishon, has worked full-time for the network for 13 years.
Wishon speaks very proudly of Robertson.
“He almost had a childlike attitude of telling the news, of speaking the truth,” Wishon said.
Before the Christian media mogul hit it big, he had roots in Lexington, where he was born on March 22, 1930.
10 News learned he grew up on Highland Road.
Robertson attended Washington and Lee and graduated in 1950 with his bachelor’s and then went to Yale Law School.
Robertson moved his family to Tidewater and started the Christian Broadcasting Network.
The media mogul still had ambitions, even making a run for president but, he needed protection.
“I happened to look in the paper one day and they were advertising for former police officers,” Tom Hickman, former Personal Protection Officer for Robertson said.
Hickman is also a Lexington native, a former Roanoke police officer, and deputy with Chesapeake County Sheriff’s Office.
He interviewed and eventually got the job.
“I went back into his office and we started talking and he said, ‘Oh, I went to school with your mother,’” Hickman said.
Hickman, traveled across the states with Robertson, running for president from 1984 to 1988 and he was always impressed with Robertson’s memory.
“When he got off the plane, people would be in the back seat giving him information, all the statistics and numbers,” Hickman said. “He was sitting, listening to it and we would go to a civic center or meeting and Dr. Robertson had it all. He used good common sense, and what he did and said was beneficial to everybody.”