The microphone has been passed to Doug Brown at Boot Hill and the lab technician's job at Progress Energy has gone to his successor. The year 2010 saw John Bullard retiring from both of these positions.

While he worked for Progress Energy, announcing was something Bullard did in his spare time because he loved it. A 1967 graduate of Madison High School and a 1971 graduate of Florida State University, where he majored in Radio and TV Broadcasting, Bullard took a job with Florida Power in the early seventies. When asked why he went to work for the power company, he answered, "Benefits."

Benefits were not something that one came by easily in the broadcasting biz, where Bullard has worked on and off in since he was a sophomore in high school. In 1965, he took a job with Norm Protsman, who was then the owner of WMAF-AM in Madison. Bullard has posted hit songs from 1965 on his Facebook page, hearkening back to the day when rock 'n roll reigned supreme.

While at Florida State University, Bullard learned from Professor J. Clark Weaver that there were seven dominant vocal characteristics that a good announcer should eliminate in order to communicate.

"How were you able to get rid of the vocal characteristics (identifying you as a Southerner)?" this writer asked Bullard.

"I didn't," Bullard said, admitting that his voice still retains a Southern drawl. The drawl may not be noticeable to others from the area, but, he maintains, it is easily identifiable to people from other places.

At FSU, Bullard did workstudy at WFSU-FM and WFSU-TV, which were both located on-campus at the time.

In a sit-down interview with this writer, it was discovered that the writer and Bullard had a professor in common during their years (about 15 years apart) at FSU. Both of them had Donald Ungarait, although when this writer had him for a class in 1986, Ungarait had a graduate assistant overseeing his class while he traveled to Europe to deliver lectures.

While he was attending Florida State, streaking was a familiar pastime at the college, though not one that Bullard participated in.

"Unfortunately, the streakers I saw were all guys," Bullard said, jokingly.

Bullard was also at the college when Bill Peterson was the head football coach. Peterson was the Yogi Berra of college football, and had quotes attributed to him, such as, "I just got indicted in the Florida Sports Hall of Fame and they had a standing observation for me," and "Okay, guys, line up, according to height, in alphabetical order."

During his time at FSU, Bullard met his future bride, Ginger Adams, and began dating her. They were married two days before Christmas on Dec. 23, 1970.

John graduated from FSU in 1971. He moved to Palatka, where he worked as program director at WWPF. The format that was used when he became the program director was different, as the station played all types of music, from adult contemporary, to rhythm and blues and big band music. The father of the woman who owned the radio station was a big fan of Guy Lombardo, so big band tunes were played on the station. When John became the program director, he switched to an adult contemporary format during he day and at night, a black disk jockey came on and played R&B music.

John said that the station was located on River Street, right on the St. John's River.

John and Ginger have three children, John Bullard III, who is married to Cathy, and lives in Albany, Ga.; Valerie, who is married to Grant Bass; and Brooke, who is married to Phillip Hackle. Grant and Valerie have two children, Amber, 10, and Riley, 8.

John works as a systems administrator for Teligent EMS (Electronic Manufacturing System).

Valerie is a pre-K teacher at Madison County Central School.

Brooke works for Dr. Curt Starling in Valdosta, Ga., as a certified orthopedic technologist. She turned down a job to work as a trainer for the Cleveland Browns because she wanted to remain in the area.

When John returned to Madison County, he began working for Tri-County Electric. He did clerical work for Tri-County for 10 months.

In 1973, John began working for Florida Power under Ed Haywood, who was the plant manager at the time. In Bullard's job with the company, he was involved in environment testing, dealing with DEP and EPA testing.

While John worked for Florida Power and Progress Energy, he worked for seven plant managers and one interim plant manager.

"I worked for every plant manager there except for the very first one," he said. The Florida Power plant in Ellaville opened in 1954.

At the power plant in Ellaville, John worked with a number of other Madison Countians, including Sputter Ragans and Louis DeMotsis. He said that the plant managers always came from somewhere else because the company seemed to prefer .

Looking forward to retirement, John said he has no plans to travel. His wife, Ginger, still has some time before her retirement from the Madison County School District. He said that he will mostly play it by ear and see what happens before he decides what to do during his retirement.

John's last day with Progress Energy was Dec. 31, 2010.

In addition to WMAF and WWPF, John has also worked at WAAC-FM in Valdosta, Ga.

Away from work, John became known as the "Voice of the Cowboys." He originally began announcing baseball games when Brad and Brent Robinson and Brad Ragans were on the Cowboys' varsity and their fathers came and asked him to do it.

He later began calling Cowgirls' softball and Cowboys' football games. Prior to John taking the mic at the Cowboys' games, Randall Buch-anan called the games.

John took over when Buchanan, who finally succumbed to cancer, became too sick to call the games. As mentioned before, John has passed on the announcing duties to Doug Brown, whom fans can hear call the games at Boot Hill during the fall.