Tim Tooten has come a long way since his days as a 17-year-old disc jockey and news commentator at WNER radio in Live Oak.

Tooten, an education reporter for WBAL, Baltimore’s top television station, is one of the most widely recognized and respected reporters in the Baltimore-Washington market. But the Live Oak native and 1976 Suwannee High graduate got his start right here.

After leaving Live Oak, Tooten continued his broadcasting career at his alma mater, Florida State University, where he graduated with a B.S. degree in Communication.

Tooten joined WBAL in August 1988, following 11 years of broadcasting experience in West Virginia, Washington, DC and Florida. Among the highlights of his reporting assignments are a half hour documentary, shot in Liberia, West Africa, called “Africa’s Maryland,” which prompted Maryland’s governor to sign an extensive cultural, educational and financial sister city agreement with two counties in the Republic of Liberia; a prestigious National Headliner award for his documentary, “East is East,” which profiled life as an African American growing up on Maryland’s eastern shore; and an Associated Press award for his undercover investigative series of reports on the history of discriminatory practices in the private clubs in West Virginia.

In addition to his broadcasting achievements, Tooten is particularly proud of sharing the “good news” as pastor and founder of Harvest Christian Ministries in Baltimore, a non-denominational, multi-ethnic church. Tooten graduated last spring from Saint Mary’s Seminary (Ecumenical Institute) in Baltimore, the country’s oldest seminary, with a Master of Arts degree in theology. This fall, he’ll pursue his Doctor of Ministry Degree from Virginia Seminary in Lynchburg.

Tooten remains active in his community, employed as a broadcasting professor at Loyola College of Baltimore, and as a mentor to African American males at Perry Hall High School. He is married and the father of three children.