http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl? http://www.eblah.com en http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1283013585/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1283013585/#num1 OBITUARY -- MEL SPRACKMAN

By: Dick Drew
Broadcaster.com
August 27, 2010

It is hard to accept the fact that Mel Sprackman is no longer with us.. He died suddenly in his home August 10th. He was 70 years young.


Right to left: Mel Sprackman, Stephanie Albulet, Jerome Gignac, John Gattens

The photo with this story says it all about Mel Sprackman and his attitude towards life and selling. Mel is the guy on the far right leading his CBS crew of Stephanie Albulet, ,Jerome Gignac, and John Gattens likely celebrating another sale on behalf of their stations.

While Mel was growing up in Toronto his mother Ann Sprackman would gather the family around the radio Sunday morning 9;05 to listen to the " Harry Harris Jewish Hour" on CHML Hamilton. This program was the information pipeline into the Jewish community throughout Southern Ontario. What Mrs Sprackman never learned was that the nice announcer who read the announcements and commercials in English following the Jewish announcer who read the same announcements in Yiddish was a young goyem from Morinville Alberta named Dick Drew. Mel and I had many good laughs about that bit of broadcast deception.

Mel enjoyed a good laugh. He sent jokes by email to a long list of friends. I always looked forward to receiving them . In fact, the last one he sent was at 13:37 the day he died.
My wife Aline and I were in the US celebrating our 54th wedding anniverrsary when our son Mitch called us with the sad news. My first thought was " There goes Mel playing another trick on us. Like Houdini he will pop up laughing saying "See I tricked you" " Some trick,eh ?  
Mel spent his entire working life dedicated to selling product. Either as the Vice president of Kert Advertising, McCann Erickson or his own Sprackman, Green Huckvale.agency.

Fortunately for us in the radio business Mel moved into time sales in 1980 with Jim Crawford and formed National Radio Sales. Shortly after that, Dick Moody. President of Standard Broadcast Sales came out from Toronto and convinced them to become the SBS West Coast representatives. In the mid 1980's SBS became CBS and Mel managed this newly formed office until he retired in 2006. Like most guys who worked long busy hours for many years, Mel could not sit still. He made a deal with Vista Broadcasting to be their National Advertising Co-ordinator and Regional Sales Rep. Paul Mann of Vista will tell you they could not have landed a better person.  Mel was my Vancouver rep when I owned CKAY Duncan . Nothing went down that I did not know about. He had pipelines all over.

John Gattens began working with Mel when National Radio was formed in 1987. John told me " Dick,what I will always remember about Mel was his great sense of humour. He developed and produced two comedy CD's titled " The two sides of Mel"...and " The joys of Jewish Humour" google it ,you can buy them on line'

Mel was a devoted family man. He and Penny. his wife of 27 years raised a blended family of five children and now boast six grandchildren.

Mel Sprackman was one of the greatest broadcast salesman ever. A truly fun loving person who will long be remembered and sadly missed.

Donations can be made to the Mel Sprackman Scholarship Fund at the Pacific Torah Institution 604-261-1502
email office@ptibc.org or The Schara Tzedeck Synagagouge 604-736-7607 email officeassistantsharaatzedeck.com


Email Dick: dickdrew@shaw.ca
http://www.broadcastermagazine.....be9dde9b&stpc=BM

.]]> Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:39:45 B Control http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1279388616/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1279388616/#num1 REMEMBERING VICTORIA'S BROADCASTERS
OF THE 1940's

by Bob Thompson (Pictured in 1948 )

(as written several years ago.. Many names included here have since left us, to join the big radio station in the sky.)

I came to Victoria from Saskatoon in March 1948 on the old Princess of Victoria, to join the announcing staff of CJVI. People who resided in Victoria in the 40's and 50's will recall most of the CJVI announcers on what was, at the time, Victoria's only radio station. They included Ted Reynolds (who was to become a senior sportscaster with the CBC covering several Olympics, Pan American and British Commonwealth Games) - Ida Bianco Clarkson (crowned the Queen of Victoria telelvision upon her retirement after more than 30 years at CHEK TV) - Laurie Dillabaugh ( a favorite with Victoria teenagers in the 1940's for his 900 Club program) - Doris Dillabaugh ( Laurie's sister and my wife of 54 years, who was the first female disc jockey on the Island with her 1950 program "Dillabaugh Delivers") - Bob Thompson ( the "Bob and Elsie" program) - Monty McFarlane (who moved on to become one of Vancouver's most popular morning hosts on CJOR) - Al Collins ( with a noon hour program titled "Piccadily Parade" featuring British entertainers) - Neil Nisbet (hosted " 'Mang the Heather " with a Scottish accent) - Rudy Hartman ( "Music Lovers Corner" which featured classical music). Rudy eventually became Manager of Vancouver's only ethnic radio station - Maurice Cownden and brother Walter Cownden (who left CJVI to become a popular broadcaster and CKDA executive for many years). Other staff announcers included Peter Barker and Terry Garner.  As people moved along, Myron Belagno and Al Keyworth joined the announce staff, before themselves moving on to stations in Vancouver and eventually to successful careers out of broadcasting.

In 1950 Bruce Lowther was hired as CJVI's first News Director.

Other on-air staffers with their own special programs were sales manager Lee Hallberg ("The Old Fisherman"), production manager Dick Batey, and salesman Ralph Pashley. Ralph's Sunday evening commentary, written by Dick Batey, was highly rated because he was either loved or hated. One of his admirers was Gorde Hunter, columnist for the Times/Colonist, who wrote "One Man's Opinion" for many years. In 1948 teenagers Hugh Curtis and Ray Orchard (students at Oak Bay High) had a Saturday morning program. Hugh eventually went into politics and became Reeve of Saanich and a few years later Minister of Finance for the Social Credit Government. Ray's career took him to Britain and the Netherlands.

Venerable Al Smith was featured at the piano for a number of years and always challenged the listeners to try and stump him with a title he couldn't play. It seems to me he was only got off guard one time  - which is remarkable. English organist Reg Stone also had a very popular program on CJVI for some time.

Fred Usher and Bob McGill, who were on the sales staff, were best known for their popular western band The Hometowners. For many years they played every Saturday evening at Shawnigan Lake, and also had a program on the CBC originating from the studios of CJVI. The band featured Fred on guitar, accordionist Al Denoni, Jeff Venables viloinist, Bill Botten on bass, Andy Anderson on piano, and singer Bob McGill.

When I retired from the provincial government I decided to get some of the old gang back for a monthly luncheon. We call it the Old Broadcasters Club ( the OBC network) and include retirees from local radio and television stations. I gave it six months - it started in 1991 and is still going strong. Of the names previously mentioned above OBC members include Rudy, Ida, Walter, Doris, and Ray. We are in our late 70's and early 80's. Other members include Ron Robinson of CJVI, CFMS, & CKXM; Andy Stephen, John Mackin and Fred Cole of CKDA; and Bob Aylward, remembered for his teenage dance party on CHEK TV.

A mainland contingent comes over each year for our Roadkill Barbecue at the Orchard's farm in Metchosin - they have included Ted Reynolds, Bob Switzer, Bill Dobson, and Stan Peters (CBC broadcasters), Bob Hutton (CKNW) and Jack Kyle (CJVI, CKWX, CKNW). The upisland group that joined us for the day has included John Barton (CHEK TV/CKDA), Phil Barter (CKDA), Keith McKenzie (CKDA) and John Ansell (CJVI/CKWX/CFAC).

Many tales are told about the early days in radio and television and we all had our share of spoonerisms - "For the breast in bed it's McGavins", or the weather forecast of "shattered scowers".

The following story is a classic. It involved Laurie Dillabaugh and the night he got locked out of the station, at one in the morning, in the middle of winter. In the 40's and early 50''s CJVI was on the roof of the Central Building, seven stories up. Building codes required that the old cage elevator have an operator and a lady named Rose performed that duty faithfully for years. However, she was not on duty on the weekends and that meant we had to climb 12 flights of stairs to the studio. If you signed off Saturday evening and your next shift was Sunday morning we were allowed to sleep on the chesterfield in the manager's office, which was particularly helpful in the winter months. Laurie had signed the station off at midnight and, before bedding down on the chesterfield, went out of the office, through the reception area and out of the station, to the restroom off the hall. To his consternation he found on his return that the door was locked. So there he was - locked out, wearing only jockey shorts, six floors up, on a bitterly cold January night. He had two options - wait until the nightwatchman showed up about 4 in the morning - or walk down the stairs and try his luck at the fire escape. He chose the latter. He walked out of the building into the snow on View Street, around the corner on Broad Street to Trounce Alley, jumped up and grabbed the last rung of the fire escape, climbed to the roof, opened the window of the music library, and went to bed in the office.

He was thankful that there weren't any pedestrians at that hour- and doubly thankful that a police car didn't happen to spot him. It would have taken a lot of explaining.

( Following his retirement Bob Thompson became a published author and freelance writer.  Also you may have seen his many Letters to the Editor in the Times-Colonist.)
]]> Sat, 17 Jul 2010 10:43:36 mikedup http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1274906089/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1274906089/#num1

    
        Jo Evans
I read in this forum that 'Joe Evans' ...ex of CJME/Montreal...and CKLW is
weekend host and  now known as 'Jo Evans' ?  I went to their website...
http://www.groovefm.ca/index.aspx

when did "Joe" become a woman?

What is the story here?]]> Wed, 26 May 2010 13:34:49 sasha07 http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1273874395/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1273874395/#num1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eusksHQm7dw]]> Fri, 14 May 2010 14:59:55 One More Mohican http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1273289934/ http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/cgi-bin/forum/Blah.pl?m-1273289934/#num1 I Remember
Mighty Mike Easton



by  Michael Kaehn
May 8th Report

Hi Mike;

Well your name "Mighty Mike Easton" has stuck in my head all of these years. I could not tell you any of the CKLG, CFUN or KJR DJs names after all these years.

You used to have the dedication phone in which was a huge hit. I do not think any radio show in town was ever as popular as yours was after that. I highly doubt there has been as popular a DJ around since you were on the air either. Everybody I knew at that time listened to you and would talk about your show at school all the time. You were just the best thing going at that time.

Think you tried to squeeze up to ten dedications in at a time between songs. Now you might have only done that on Saturday night and maybe Friday night. Everybody would be listening waiting to hear somebody dedicate a song to them. I have no idea if that was your idea or not but again that was absolutely huge.

I can remember sitting at the kitchen table with the transistor radio blaring away doing my homework listening to you. Actually that was the only way homework could be properly done listening to your show. Made French homework tolerable.

Would have been in grade nine in 69-70 which I seem to remember was when you were really big. Growing up in Langford the radio was a big part of our life as there was nothing to do out there back then. We had to make a choice whether to go to the car races or listen to you on Saturday night, and if we went to the races we missed out on all the dedications.

I am just chatting with a friend that now lives in Tennessee with all the flooding going on around her. Just asked her if she remembered you. Not your name but remembers the dedication line but said she never phoned in or had anybody dedicate a song to her, as she was too busy studying. Guess her parents did not let her study and listen to the radio. Told her I would dedicate a song to her......lol.

Do any of the local radio shows know how big you were back then? My money says you would get a standing ovation if you were to ever get up on stage and introduce any of these touring rock bands that have come to town, that you played on the radio back then. The age group that listened to you back then are the ones that are filling the arena.

Another Michael

.]]> Fri, 7 May 2010 20:38:54 Voice Over