30 years of radio in High River
A lot of changes for station


By Don Patterson
highrivertimes.com
Tuesday August 28, 2007

High River’s CHRB has been a friend in the country for 30 years - a period that has seen a lot of changes for the High River radio station.

The station, commonly known today as AM 1140, marked its 30th anniversary with a party in George Lane Park on Aug. 24 featuring performances by local musicians.
Modern communication technology has come a long way since news and sports director Don McCracken joined the station over 20 years ago.
Albums gave way to single-track tapes and 8 tracks, which gave way to cassettes, which in turn changed to CDs, which have themselves given way to computers. The station even once had a large library of ‘45s and LPs.
A lot of people have gone through its sound booths over the years, launching many people’s careers in the media industry.

Before the Internet and satellite feeds, McCracken said much of the station’s content was provided by telephone. All that would be needed to potentially derail a new broadcast, he added, was for a telephone pole to get knocked out.
One constant that has remained over the years is the station’s focus on the community.
“That would be the one thing that never changes, where the community comes first,” said
McCracken.
Station manager Jeff Young said the community focus is one of the station’s greatest strengths.
“[The staff members] live in the community, give back to the community and are involved in the community,” he said. “Our strength is local, local, local.”
The station has grown over the years, with sister station The Eagle 100.9 going on air in 2003 and a second sister station to start up later this fall.
“It’s a home-grown station with a lot of people involved,” he said.


He said AM 1140 and The Eagle continue to work to give a “local flavour” to their regular content.
                  
http://www.highrivertimes.com/News/334363.html

And next year High River celebrates 10 years of  indoor plumbing.




(It's just a joke!)

The third Sister station is Sun Country 99.7
Staying with the Local, Local, Local theme they have all local news, sports and weather pertaining to the Foothills (Okotoks, High River, Nanton, Turner Valley, Black Diamond etc.)
Going up against Country 105 seems risky to me, however it is a different market they are geared towards.
The Eagle 100.9 started broadcasting Okotoks Oilers Hockey games this year, the On-Air talent Chrs Colwell sounds great and they have had many colour guys including ex-Rogers sports kid Josh Groberman. they opting is very smooth I hear the producer Pauline Rees is only 17 and may start working Full Time for AM 1140, Sun Country and The Eagle.
I heard she is hoping to take over Chris Cowells job next year and be the On-Air talent for the Hockey Games. it would be nice to have a women as the voice of sports.

Chris Colwell is a great play by play man: he makes the games sound very exciting. You can also tell that he is very prepared for all his broadcasts.

I've heard Pauline Rees do wheather on AM1140 a few times. She is also very good.

With all this young talent in the Calgary area, the future looks very bright for southern AB.