Village Squire, 1979-04, Page 5features while in high school. He also won an oratorical contest.
1t was one of his teachers, who saw weaknesses in other areas of
his schooling but was impressed by his ability to communicate
who suggested he try to get a summer job with a Woodstock
radio station. He started applying at age 16 for a summer job,
writing earnest letters about his oratorical excellence. Age 17 he
finally got a part time job at the station, working Saturday
nights. In June the regular night shift man was leaving for
greener pastures and offered Jim the chance to replace him.
He looked at it as a chance to at least have a summer job. If he
didn't like it, he could always quit and go back to school come
September. But he never did.
"I worked there from six 'till midnight," he says, "but it was
such a gas. 1 mean it wasn't work at all."
After a while the morning man at the station left and he
started campaigning with the station owner to get the morning
show. The argument against him was that he was too
inexperienced for the important morning show. He pointed out
that the person considered for the job was older but no more
experienced because he came from outside of the business.
Finally his argument worked and he got the morning job and the
new man was given his evening job.
He held the job for over a year then along with many others at
the station, began sending out tapes to seek other jobs. It was
just something you did, he says now smiling. You had to
graduate from the little 250 -watt station to something bigger.
The something bigger in this case turned out to be something
smaller in terms of a town but much bigger in terms of a station.
It was CKNX in Wingham and he began on Dec. 27, 1963. He got
his first taste of television there, working on live television. It
was just after the famous fire at the station and though the
station was operating again, there weren't such modern
conveniences as video tape units yet. It was in the days too
before the emergence of community colleges when most new
employees came to the station with little training and got their
training on the job. By about 1970 the graduates of courses
changed the industry.
He began the morning show in late 1965 and kept it until he
left in 1977 to take his present job on Morning Break. Although
he was involved in many other jobs at .the station it was this job
over the next 12 years that made him familiar to the audience
scattered over a wide area from Georgian Bay to near London
and east to the Guelph and Stratford areas. In a small town and
rural area people get up early in the morning to go to work on the
farm or in town and for the audience he became a morning
fixture. To serve that audience he made sign -on time for the
station earlier. moving to 6 a.m. from 6:30 a.m. and even
creepinglit earlier than that sometimes. He began turning the
transmitter on at 5:30 in his latter days on the program. "I
always figured the people up that early were probably the most
dependable loyal audience that I had. They used to communicate
with me probably more than anybody. But you became aware
what people were doing at particular times of the day. I think
eventually you really related to what was going on with them out
there with them."
Those who used to listen to the program felt a loss when he left
CKNX because of a feeling of involvement he had with the
community, something that developed over his long years on the
show. He was one of the most popular masters of ceremonies for
community events around the region. His show evolved over the
years into a show where he not only gave the usual morning
weather reports and time checks but gave a whole community
activities round up. In later years studio guests became more and
more plentiful and when there wasn't someone in the studio,
they were likely to be there on the other end of a telephone.
While some have mentioned his work as being more than was
normally called for, he makes no claims for dedication to the
community for himself through the show. "I really got to that
point where I really had to wonder if I had 15 years experience or
one year's experience 15 times.
"I guess in terms of involvement. there were things I was
doing that 1 was just doing. I didn't realize that it was anything
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