WINNSBORO – After 18 years of delivering weather forecasts to Midlands viewers, WLTX meteorologist Daniel Bonds, a Winnsboro native and familiar face in Fairfield County, will sign off from the station for the last time on Friday, Oct. 31. He’ll be moving on to the SC Department of Environmental Services, where he will serve as an Environmental Health Manager in the Water Bureau.
“Over the years,” he said, “I had opportunities to go to different stations, even to be a chief meteorologist in some places, but my wife and I wanted to stay in Winnsboro. We like living here, in a small town. We wanted to raise our kids here.”
Bonds, 48, said that his lifelong interest in reading the sky began when he witnessed fierce storm damage at an early age.
“In 1984, a huge tornado hit Winnsboro and tore up the school I was attending at the time, Richard Winn Academy. I mean absolutely destroyed it,” he said. “And then in 1989, Hurricane Hugo came through, which became the litmus test for hurricanes in South Carolina.
“I wanted to understand how things like that could happen,” he said. “That’s what I always wanted to know.”
After graduating from Fairfield Central High School, Bonds earned degrees in Marketing and Human Resources at USC, then a certificate in Broadcast Meteorology and a master’s degree in Geosciences with a concentration in Applied Meteorology from Mississippi State.
“I started in the TV business at the ABC affiliate in Columbia, as a sales assistant,” he said. “I only did that to get my foot in the door – my goal was to be a TV meteorologist. Then I became a photographer, shooting video, and got the opportunity to come to WLTX as a photographer.
“One day, WLTX needed somebody to fill in as the meteorologist. I trained for about a week, and the next week I was on TV! It was kind of special, because the first day I was on the air was my 30th birthday,” he said. “I kept substituting for a long time, and then I finally got the chance to become the weekend meteorologist.
“When you work hard toward a goal your whole life and finally get the opportunity to do it – it was great.”
For the past several years, Bonds has been the “morning, noon and five” meteorologist at WLTX.
“I have to wake up at 2:30 for the morning show. That wears on you a little bit,” he said with a laugh. “It was just time for a change – I needed to do something different.”
He said he’s looking forward to a schedule that will give him more time with his family.
“I’ve felt honored to be welcomed into people’s homes all these years, and I appreciate the support, especially from Winnsboro and Fairfield County. My wife and I will be walking our dog downtown, and people will want to stop and talk – it’s fun. They’ll ask me what the weather’s going to be, if it’s going to be bad, and I like that.
“I was just talking to someone about Hurricane Melissa, which is probably going to go down as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record,” he said. “I’m still amazed by how powerful weather can be. It’s amazing how it can impact everything we do.”
