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AMAZING MEMBERS Good Morning, Haliburton County
Heather Lindsay spends a good chunk of her time in a canoe - not just any canoe, but Canoe FM 100.9, the local radio station where she is one of 100 volunteers. Heather hosts “The Drive Show” every Monday afternoon from 3:00-6:00 PM. Kashagawigamog Lake in the Haliburton Highlands is her home where she continues her volunteer spirit that began some fifty years ago. Heather served as Ontario Tau chapter president and 20072009 President of the International Council of Presidents. She said her interest began in college in the sixties when she met a handsome station engineer at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON. He told her he liked her voice and suggested she join the student-run radio station. Later, a technician would tell jokes and get her laughing. Mid-giggle, he’d put her ON AIR. “It was great fun,” she said. “I chatted and dedicated music. My boyfriend John liked to tape our shows. I don’t know where those tapes have gone, but John and I have been married for fifty-two years.” As Heather and John considered retirement, they weighed their options. There was Oshawa, where they had lived for years and had many friends, and there was Haliburton with its artist colony, where they had spent many summers in their cottage on the lake. Heather was established and active in her Oshawa home with friends, A∆K sisters, and many activities to keep her busy. What would she have if they moved to their cottage in Haliburton, their summer home since 1999? When two retired DJs decided to set up a radio station in Haliburton, Heather found a home. In a zoom interview, Heather described the station: “It’s a community station, funded by the community, informing the community, loved by the community. The station has morphed into an important part of the community. Our reports and alerts make us invaluable to residents.” People say they feel as if they know her just from listening to her voice. “I don’t know about that, but I love what I do,” she mused. Heather plans each show, often based on a theme. “Once I chose ‘the moon’ and played Moon River, Moon Over Miami, Fly Me to the Moon.” But there’s more to Canoe FM and Heather’s show than playing music. “People tune in because we tell them what’s going on in town. I read public service announcements, alert folks to traffic tie-ups, share community happenings, and announce upcoming events. We’re required to play six Canadian artists each hour on air, but I have the freedom to design the rest.” Heather said that new artists seek out the station as a place to launch their works. “John urged me to volunteer at the station; he wanted me to
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establish roots there.” Heather’s show has aired since January 2010. She manages her own control panel, the fourth and most complex in her radio experience. After an hour or so of training on each new board, she’s left to her own devices. “It’s sometimes unnerving,” she revealed. “There are a lot of switches to manage, and my mind is shuffling lots of details at once. I don’t want to mess up the broadcast or make the station look bad.” Heather got a certificate as a primary school specialist and taught kindergarten for seven years. Each of her thirty years in education was spent with children in primary school. She worked in multi-grade classrooms, first through fourth grade, as a librarian, with “mentally challenged” students and as a speech and language specialist. Once offered a programming job with IBM, she reflected, “I loved teaching and considered myself lucky it was the career I chose.” “I research, edit, and broadcast the local news online, and I report it at 5:00 P.M. I read PSAs, so I usually know what’s going on in the area.” She shares short jokes, quotes, word plays, interesting and unusual facts, and occasional inspirational stories. She holds in reserve a pad of one-liner bad jokes from friends. “Sometimes, A∆K sisters have let me know they’ll be tuning in, and I give a shout out to them.” In her OFF AIR time, Heather belongs to two Probus (Professional Business) groups, Canadian Federation of University Womens’ Club, bridge club, book groups, and serves as her ON Tau chapter president. She says that the show gives structure to her week. It’s a job, but it’s one she loves doing. As for working without pay, she reflected, “Whenever you volunteer, you always get back more than you give. That’s not why you do it; that’s just the way it works.”
AZ Pi
Janet Chavez-Vesely, AZ Pi, led her senior English class students at Coconino High School in a project celebrating Veterans Day. The 50 students wrote 240 letters of appreciation to local veterans. The students came up with the idea after the class read “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien. The book is a collection of short stories about the author’s time in the Vietnam War, using various items in soldiers’ packs as a metaphor for the weight of war. Janet contacted Sarah Cromer, AZ Pi, her husband Mike and her former fifth and sixth grade teachers who provided a list of veterans from the local chapter of the American Legion. Though this is the first year sending letters, Janet said she hoped this would become an annual project.
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