CORNELIA – For generations of Northeast Georgians, morning arrived with the voice of Billy Burrell.
The longtime pastor and broadcaster who spent more than 70 years behind a microphone – most memorably as the host of WCON Radio’s Sunshine Melodies – died Wednesday evening, September 16th according to Clayton Foster of WCON radio. He was 96.
Burrell’s voice was warm, unhurried and instantly recognizable. Beginning before sunrise, he brought listeners gospel music, Scripture, prayer and gentle encouragement. For many, he was more than a radio personality. He was the preacher who visited their homes every morning, the minister they called when a loved one died and a steady presence through decades of change in Northeast Georgia.
In an interview for the Hey Habersham podcast, Burrell described broadcasting as an extension of the ministry he first felt called to as a boy.
“I have a feeling that there’s someone that I need to be speaking to and the program ministering to,” he said. “It’s a calling, just like … the call that I had during my pastoral years.”
From a Quiet Boy to the Pulpit
Billy Andrew Burrell was born March 14, 1930, near Dillard in Rabun County. His family lived for a time in Scaly Mountain and Highlands, North Carolina, before settling in the Tallulah Falls area. He entered Tallulah Falls School as a first-grader in 1938 and graduated in 1948.
Burrell said he gave his life to Jesus Christ when he was 12. His path into ministry was shaped in part by his grandmother, the daughter of an illiterate Baptist preacher. As a girl, she had read Scripture aloud to her father so he could prepare his sermons, and she prayed that one of her descendants would become a minister.
When Burrell told her that he believed God was calling him to preach, her reaction surprised him. The boy was so quiet that she laughed and told him he could not even carry on a conversation.
He proved otherwise.
Burrell delivered his first sermon when he was about 16 or 17. After graduating from Tallulah Falls School, he attended Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. At approximately 19, he entered pastoral ministry at Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Demorest.
His ministry later took him to Calvary Baptist Church in Starkville, Mississippi, and Harmony Baptist Church in Banks County. Around 1961, he accepted a call to Hazel Creek Baptist Church in Mount Airy, the home church of his wife, Eugenie.
Burrell initially thought Hazel Creek might be a brief stop. It became a 30-year pastorate.
Under his leadership, the congregation grew, as did the church’s facilities. After retiring from full-time pastoral work, he continued preaching, served numerous churches as interim pastor and conducted weddings and funerals throughout the region.
Sunshine Before Daybreak
Burrell’s broadcasting career began in 1951 at WLET in Toccoa. He had already recorded sermons for the station and became fascinated by radio while visiting its studios. When an opening developed, he asked for a chance to work behind the microphone.
His first regular assignment was on Monday mornings. From there, broadcasting became a second ministry.
At WLET, he developed a program of sacred music, Scripture, devotional commentary and prayer. When the station manager asked what he would call it, Burrell looked at a gospel record near the turntable. The title inspired the name that would follow him for the rest of his broadcasting career: Sunshine Melodies.
Even moving to Mississippi did not end the program. While pastoring in Starkville, Burrell recorded broadcasts and mailed them back to Georgia to be played on the air.
After returning to Northeast Georgia, he began recording the program for WCON in Cornelia. In 1965, station owner John Foster asked Burrell to fill an early-morning opening for a couple of weeks while the station searched for another announcer.
The temporary assignment lasted 57 years.
Burrell watched WCON grow from a modest local station to a powerful FM broadcaster whose signal and online stream carried his voice far beyond Habersham County. He said he heard from listeners across the country and as far away as Ukraine.
For years, he rose around 3:30 a.m., prepared breakfast and left home shortly after 5 a.m. to begin broadcasting at 5:30. When someone suggested that he record an entire week’s programs in advance, he declined.
“I’d rather be there in person,” he explained. “I have a feeling that there’s someone that I need to be speaking to.”
‘Bootlegging the Gospel’
Burrell sometimes described his approach to broadcasting as “bootlegging the Gospel.”
The phrase reflected his decision to work at a commercial radio station rather than restrict his ministry to an exclusively religious format. He believed listeners might tune in for country music and then hear a devotional message they otherwise would have avoided.
“I can enter into commercial radio, and from that place, I can … bootleg the Gospel in between some country music,” he said.
Burrell carefully selected the country music he played, but faith remained at the center of his work. He credited the Foster family, owners of WCON, with giving Sunshine Melodies a home and supporting its spiritual mission.
Listeners responded by inviting him into some of the most personal moments of their lives. Burrell said people without a church or pastor often asked funeral directors to “get Billy Burrell” when they needed someone to conduct a service. Some weeks he officiated at two funerals. On one particularly busy day, he left a funeral in northern Habersham County and drove directly to a wedding.
He also remembered hearing from listeners whose lives had been changed through the program. One man initially objected when his wife listened to Burrell each morning, but later became a Christian and eventually entered the ministry himself.
“We have numerous things like this that God has used the radio and the ministry together to reach someone,” Burrell said.
An Enduring Legacy
Burrell received numerous honors for his service to broadcasting, ministry and the community. In 2020, Cornelia Mayor John Borrow proclaimed March 14 as Billy Burrell Day as Burrell celebrated his 90th birthday. The Georgia Senate adopted a resolution honoring his career and recognized Sunshine Melodies as the longest-running weekday radio program in North America hosted by the same person.
WCON later named its renovated broadcast studio in Burrell’s honor.
On July 1, 2022, at age 92, Burrell signed off from his final regular broadcast. His retirement ended a radio career that had begun 71 years earlier, but he made clear that he was leaving the studio, not the ministry.
“The Lord started this thing,” he said during his final broadcast, “and the Lord told me when to quit.”
Burrell’s wife and ministry partner, Georgie Eugenie Smith Burrell, preceded him in death. They married Nov. 25, 1955, and their partnership extended through decades of church work, broadcasting and community service. In his interview with Habersham News, Burrell credited Eugenie with being a faithful teacher, organizer and partner in every part of his ministry. He also spoke with gratitude about the help of their daughter, Neysa Joy.
Asked what accomplishment made him most proud, Burrell redirected the credit.
“I’m just thankful I had the opportunity that God bestowed upon me,” he said. “God has blessed it.”
Burrell once described his connection to this region by saying his feet were “anchored in the red clay of North Georgia.” His voice, carried for decades across those mountains and into homes far beyond them, became just as firmly rooted in the community’s memory.
