He helped pay his way through University of Alabama School of Law by doing sports play-by-play and other announcing duties at Tuscaloosa's WJRD radio, a sideline that made him question his goals to become a lawyer.
Within a year, Bahakel bought out his partner and found that one of the best investments in business was an hour spent talking to customers over a cup of coffee.
He went on to build radio stations from scratch in Greenwood, Mississippi, Kingsport, Tennessee, and Roanoke, Virginia.
As the era of television dawned in the 1950s, Bahakel tried his hand in this new fad as well, and founded WABG-TV in Greenwood, the Mississippi Delta's first TV station, in 1959.
Bahakel ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970, losing to incumbent Republican Charles R.