It was Easter weekend of 1973 when BJ Sams’ only son, Billy Jack Sams II, died at the age of 11 in a tragic airplane crash. BJ survived the same accident only to return home after his son’s funeral to find a reminder of the holiday left uncelebrated - Easter egg dye on his kitchen counter. It was a tragedy that shook his soul, but never his faith.

His low, authoritative voice is unmistakable to most Arkansans. But there was a time when BJ Sams was simply grooming his reading delivery for a job promotion: from radio station janitor to DJ. “My brother, who was a year older than me, got a job at the local radio station as a disc jockey,” Sams recalls his Tennessee past. “And he was working his Senior year in high school as a radio announcer. When I graduated from high school, I started looking around for a job that summer (until I went to college in the fall), and got a job as a janitor making $0.75 an hour. Three or four weeks later one of the DJ’s quit and I went to the general manager and said, ‘I want to apply for that DJ’s job.”’ The young man was told he could audition after the general manager returned from vacation, so Sams and his brother began working on his vocal skills to develop what we now know as that bass tone of authority reading our morning news. BJ was hired upon his boss’ return and went on the air as “BJ the DJ.”

Though his father preferred his son become a doctor, BJ graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in industrial management. After being called into military service, where BJ met fellow singer, Elvis Presley, the army broadcast specialist moved to Monroe, Louisiana. There the radio DJ entered the world of television as a weatherman and sportscaster for Channel 10. It was multi-tasking at its best. “News was blocked back then,” BJ explains, “We had 15 minutes of news, 5 minutes of weather, and 10 minutes of sports. The news anchor would do his 15 and then leave. They would do a station break, then I would do the weather, they would do another station break, and I would walk over to the sports desk and do the sports.” The hard work paid off. Fifteen months later, Dale Nicholson saw Sams and called to see if he would be interested in moving to KATV Channel 7 in Little Rock. It was now 1966 and Sams was, once again, doing double duty: filling in for the newscaster and the sportscaster. When the news anchor quit shortly afterward, BJ moved into the anchor spot where he remained for seven years.

The four Sams brothers had been nurtured by a loving mother and father in Elizabethton, Tennessee. They were raised in a little Baptist church in their hometown where their father was church treasurer. They had grown up singing together during numerous church services over the years, and BJ accepted Christ at age 11 during Vacation Bible School. With a strong foundation in Christ that he continues to carry to this day, it is no wonder that faith and family are priorities in BJ’s life. But, by the time he was ending his tenure in Little Rock, BJ had reluctantly divorced his wife whose mental and emotional instability had placed not only BJ, but their son, Billy Jack, in life threatening situations. Her threats against both father and son eventually helped win Sams custody of the 11-year old boy. So it was, when he was offered a job in Honolulu, Hawaii, BJ decided to make the move from his Arkansas home for a fresh start in the Pacific.

Two months after their arrival in Honolulu, Sams was established in his job as evening news anchor at KHON and Billy Jack was comfortably settled in school. Al Allen, the traffic reporter in the KHON newsroom, was a pilot and invited BJ and Billy Jack to fly around the islands with him the following Saturday. Father and son accepted their friend’s invitation and went out to Honolulu International that next Saturday afternoon to climb aboard a single engine, four-seater plane. BJ recites the events of that fateful day, “I got in the back seat, Billy Jack and the pilot in the front seats, and we went through all the steps that pilots go through and then we took off. He explained every one of them to Billy Jack. We started heading toward the center of the island, the mountains, and all of a sudden we lost power. He tried to restart it, but it wouldn’t restart. He did an SOS back to the control tower and turned the plane around and tried to make it back to the airport, but we didn’t have a lot of altitude. We could see the runway as we were going back in, but the ground just kept coming up at us. Finally, the pilot yelled out, ‘Hang on, we’re gonna ditch!’ We hit on top of a warehouse, bounced down into a street and cart-wheeled up against a building and some cars and burst into flames immediately. The plane was upright when it stopped, the door had been knocked off. I was in the back seat and Billy Jack was in the fire screaming. The pilot was not making a sound, he was either knocked unconscious or dead. Billy Jack was screaming, ‘Daddy, help me!’ I quickly unbuckled my [seat] belt and started reaching around his body and I was digging in the fire trying to get the buckle. I just couldn’t locate it and he was struggling and screaming. I was starting to catch on fire. I jumped half-way in, half-way out of the plane, I thought I might look back into his buckle and as soon as I got there the whole plane just went up in flames. The flames just kinda drove me back and back and back and the screams continued and continued until finally there were no more screams.”

With burned arms, the stunned newsman turned and ran from the scene, returning minutes later as people began arriving at the crash site. Initially thinking all onboard had perished in the flames, the onlookers soon realized B. J. had survived. They had him sit on the ground and wrapped the injured passenger in blankets. He was taken by ambulance to Queen’s Hospital where he was admitted with second and third degree burns. “That night after everybody cleared out of my room, I was lying there thinking about what had happened,” Sams remembers. “I had gone through a real bad marriage, my wife turned out to be mentally ill, she almost killed me and my son, she threatened our lives many times, and when I walked out she was threatening to stick a knife in my back while I was sleeping. She threatened Billy Jack’s life – she called me and said [they] would be dead by the time [I] got home [that night]. So, I finally got out of that mess and got custody and here I had lost the only good thing that had come of the bad marriage I had. And I was lying there and I said, ‘My God, why have thou forsaken me?’ And a voice in my spirit said, ‘I haven’t forsaken you, I love you. I gave my only son for you.’”

The following morning was Easter Sunday. B. J. woke up in the hospital and glanced out the window. The first sight he saw was a cross that had been erected for Easter on Punch Bowl Crater overlooking Honolulu. Sams reflects on the image he saw, “There was a lot of comfort in the cross that morning.” Two of his brothers arrived from the mainland that day and B. J. checked out of the hospital Monday morning. With his doctor’s admonition to return to the hospital as soon as possible for treatment, the Sams brothers returned to Tennessee to bury Billy Jack.

Skin grafts were necessary on B. J.’s left arm, but scars still remain not only on his arm, but also on his heart. He admits it was extremely difficult to overcome. “You work your way through stages,” he says of his road to facing the future. “I questioned God; I didn’t have an answer. I went through a bad time. I lived by myself, so when I’d get off at 10:30, I’d go to the bars and the lounges just to be around people. And I wouldn’t go home until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. I was doing this about every night. I got to know Don Ho and all the entertainers in Honolulu, [but] during that period I was standing on my lanai, 26 floors up, and I was hurting so bad one night I got the strongest urge just to jump. I never thought I’d get to that point, but there I was. So, I ran back in my condo and slammed the door and dropped to my knees and said, ‘God, I need you.’ And a voice said, ‘I’m right here.’ I did this for months and finally I was shaving one morning and I was looking at the guy in the mirror and I said, ‘I don’t like you anymore.’” It was a turning point.

He was aided through his grief by his church families – both in Hawaii and in Arkansas. Arkansans sent approximately 3,000 cards and letters, “pouring out their hearts to me, telling me they loved me and God loved me and they were holding me up in prayer…Arkansas has a special spot in my heart because of that outpouring,” the native Tennessean says with a smile.

In 1982, B. J. Sams returned to Arkansas to work at KTHV Channel 11. For the past 10 years, B. J. has co-hosted Arkansas’s #1 Morning show along with Robyn Richardson and weatherman Tom Brannon. He has no plans to retire at present, but with two years left on his contract (which will take him to age 74), the newscaster will re-evaluate his options at that time. When retirement does come, B. J. knows he will remain in Arkansas. Though his brothers and relatives still live in Tennessee, B. J. is now a stranger in his hometown. He goes back to the Volunteer State from time to time to sing with his brothers in their home church, but his inspiration, his mother, passed away two years ago at the age of 90. The woman who worked so hard to provide a loving, Godly home for her four sons is no longer sitting in her Tennessee home awaiting day-long talks with her son during his vacations. Instead, B. J.’s friends and his life are now in Arkansas. His church family is in Arkansas, where he has been a member at Immanuel Baptist Church for over 25 years. He sings in the choir, with a quartet, and solo.

Today he travels the state speaking to church and civic groups of all sizes to provide hope and inspiration. He shares the story of his son’s short life, the emptiness it left with him and how he got through it all. He shares his testimony, sings of the God in whom he places his faith and then personally meets and shakes the hands of those attending. And he does it because he knows he might make a difference in someone’s life. He hears how he helps them through mail, e-mails, and phone calls. “At one church I spoke at, this couple had just lost one of their children about a week before I got there, and they were there that Sunday morning. And I said God placed me there for them. That’s what I get out of it,” B. J. says simply, “just knowing I can help one person.”

He tells the story of Billy Jack’s death almost in third person to help get through the story. And while the years that have gone by have helped to lessen the hurt, there are certain times and parts of the story that can still choke up the grieving father. “The scar will stay there, but I know he’s in a better place than I am [Billy Jack accepted Christ one year before the accident], so I expect to see him someday.” It’s a sad time around Easter for me, but it’s a happy time knowing that Christ was raised from the dead.”And sharing that story of Christ’s resurrection is the real focus of his life.

“One time my pastor [in Hawaii] took me to a lounge that was open until 4 a.m. down in Waikiki and we had an Easter service at 4 a.m.! The place closed and some people that were there stayed. He preached and we sang songs.”

Despite the tragedy in his life, B. J. has experienced tremendous highs as well. Though this Sinatra fan never got to meet ole’ blue eyes in person, he did get to see him in concert twice in Los Angeles. He was also the only Arkansas television newscaster privileged to interview the Reverend Billy Graham when he was in Little Rock during a crusade, and Sams treasures the autographed book he has from the evangelist. He relishes the two 10-day visits he made to Israel to see where Jesus walked. And after meeting and conversing with the late actor Walter Brennan, Sams learned he may have also had a hand in Brennan’s “religious experience” afterward. But, this television personality is quick to tell you that the highlight of his life has not been any of those meetings or so many others, but accepting Christ and knowing he has a home in heaven.

On that Easter weekend in Hawaii in 1973 when his life forever changed, B. J. received a telegram from his youngest brother. It read simply, “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” (I Peter 5:7) “That’s my verse now,” B. J. Sams says with conviction. “I’ve still got that telegram.”