New book features letters sent to TV icon
From 1967 to 1969, Barbara “Bobbie” Keith lifted spirits of homesick American troops in Vietnam during her nightly TV weather shows as “Bobbie the Weathergirl.”
Servicemen would send Keith sacks of mail, asking her for photographs, weather reports from their hometowns, or visits to their bases.
Some of those letters are featured in “Bobbie the Weathergirl,” a 200-page, photo-filled paperback book by New Smyrna Beach author and longtime friend Pia Bows that pays tribute to Keith, now retired and a Suntree resident.
When Keith was moving from Satellite Beach to Suntree in 2015 after her parents passed, Bows offered to place Keith’s Vietnam memorabilia in a binder. The letters and photos inspired Bows in 2018 to write a book, Keith said.
“I am in awe of how she did it,” Keith said of Bows’ book, which debuted in early March. “She did a great job. If she hadn’t put that together, I wouldn’t have all those beautiful memories. I wouldn’t have a collection of myself, or what I did.”
A globe-trotting daughter of two World War II veterans, Keith was 19 when she took a clerical job with the United States Agency for International Development in South Vietnam. An officer scouting for a volunteer weathergirl for Armed Forces Vietnam Network’s Saigon-based evening news broadcast told the blonde-haired Keith she looked the part, so Keith auditioned and won the role.
For the next few years, Keith shared weather reports across Vietnam and Asia and in the troops’ hometowns and favorite R&R spots. She mixed in humor, dancing and music on her shows, providing American military personnel with a welcome respite from combat and becoming one of the war’s biggest TV celebrities. Each broadcast would end with Keith wishing her audience “a pleasant evening weather-wise and you know, of course, otherwise.”
“We never had cue cards,” said Keith, who on occasion donned a bikini during her shows. “You read the ticker tapes. You went into a room and you pulled the ticker tapes off the machine and it would tell you the weather. We didn’t really start with the hometown news until the men started writing in and say, ‘We’d like to know what’s going on in our home.’ And that was very important for the guys to know that you recognize their home.”
Keith honored many of those requests to visit U.S. troops in the field, making hundreds of trips throughout the war-torn country and sometimes bringing the troops mail from home. She caught a few USO shows starring Bob Hope. She even dodged gunfire and rocket attacks from North Vietnamese forces, surviving the Tet Offensive, a series of attacks launched by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces against South Vietnam in January 1968, and the May Offensive a few months later.
During her time in Vietnam, Keith never had problems with the troops.
“Even in the middle of a war, they are still gentlemen,” she said. “I could be out with hundreds of them by myself and nothing would happen. I think they saw me as the girl they left behind.”
By 1969, Keith had grown tired of the war and left Vietnam, taking a “sanity sabbatical” to decompress from what she had experienced.
“I don’t know if anyone ever recovers from that,” Keith said. “There’s so much jammed into a tour of duty. I don’t know how to describe it. For example, I still get goosebumps anytime I hear the whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of the blades of a helicopter. That never goes away from you, which is really weird. And then sometimes if you hear a loud bang that is unusual, that can startle you and bring back memories.”
Barbara “Bobbie” Keith holds a copy of “Bobbie the Weathergirl” at her Suntree home. Senior Life photo by Mike Gaffey.
Keith traveled the world for several years before starting a 30-year career with the U.S. State Department, working at embassies in 14 countries. In the 1980s, she served as a protocol officer at the White House for former First Lady Barbara Bush.
“You need to be very detail-oriented to be able to do that,” she said. “They have a great staff. I mean, she (Mrs. Bush) was a strict master.”
In 2008, Keith was honored for her service with the Vietnam Veterans of America’s President’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
“That was very special,” she said.
Keith still receives an occasional email from Vietnam War veterans and remains a strong supporter of veterans’ causes today, speaking to young people and patriotic groups about the American experience in Vietnam. But 50 years after Saigon fell, she hasn’t returned to Vietnam.
“I kind of have a desire to do it, but I’m hesitant at my age,” she said.
Bows called her friend “a kind, fun lady to be around.”
“I wanted to show how her role as weathergirl was significant and impactful to boosting troop morale during wartime, which she selflessly accomplished,” she stated in an email.
With her friend’s book now on sale, Keith is working on an autobiography that chronicles her time in Vietnam and her life after the war.
“Weather-wise and otherwise, those memories of Vietnam and the countries I served in never go away and are stories I wish to put in print,” she said.
To buy a copy of “Bobbie the Weathergirl,” go to bowsmilitarybooks. com.
The cost is $22.99, plus $5 shipping.
