Jim Waters and CHOP FM

For many families, Pickering College becomes not only a place where their child finds their place, but where the entire family becomes part of the PC community. This is the case for the Waters family.

Jim Waters, along with his wife Sheila, has been part of the PC family since their daughters Ellie ’05 and Maxine ’02 enrolled as students. Jim Waters’ leadership and financial support brought a campus radio station to Pickering College. CHOP FM is integrated into classes beginning in Junior School right through to a credit-course in Senior School.

Why is broadcasting such an important thing to introduce to our students?

Radio is an integral part of life for most people. It is how you get your information in the car, when you get up in the morning you hear the weather for your day, there is always going to be a place for radio in our lives. It seemed like an obvious thing to give young people a chance to experience how radio works, hands-on. For a lot of students it can bring them out of their shell. Media is a pretty formidable thing. It is a great way for young people do develop their communication skills.

How did you get into broadcasting?

My father Allan always wanted to work for himself and so went to the owner of the drug company he was working for, wanting to purchase it—and the owner said it was not for sale, but he had a radio station if he wanted to buy that. So my father decided to buy it and learn about radio.

It was 1954 and he went down to the States and learned that the most successful stations were playing this weird and wonderful music called rock ’n’ roll. He came back to Toronto, threw out the records they had been playing on CHUM and said, “Here you go, here’s the 50 records, just keep playing them over and over.” That was in 1957. By the time we sold CHUM Ltd. in 2006, it was 33 radio stations and 33 television stations—all from one little AM radio station, 1050 CHUM, it all grew from that.

Over the years we never bought anything that was making money, everything we bought was losing money, but dad was so

confident in the people in the company he knew we could turn them around. My career was in radio from the day I finished school. I worked at CHUM for 35 years and at the end, I was Chairman of the Board.

What compelled you to first make a donation to Pickering College and help PC with CHOP FM?

My daughter Ellie became a different person when she came to Pickering. She needed more attention than she was getting from school before she came to Pickering. It was a critical move for us to make.

Pickering played a very meaningful role in our family’s life and I wanted to return something to the College. That was all it was. What is the most gratifying is meeting parents who come up to me and tell me what the experience of being involved in radio had on their son or daughter. When I hear that, I know we are doing good, the experience is having the intended effect on them.

What is so special about Pickering College?

Any successful organization has a strong leader and Pickering has that with Peter. He lives by the values and the pillars of Pickering. He is a good soul and a good man. Anyone I have ever interacted with— the front office staff, the teachers—have been wonderful. Those Quaker values are significant, and the people that come out of Pickering live those values. You can feel it when you walk the halls and talk to the students.

102.7 CHOP FM

Pickering College is the only JK-Grade 12 school in Canada with a CRTClicensed radio station, 102.7 CHOP FM. The student-operated radio station serves Pickering College and the wider Newmarket community. Broadcasting from New House, this fully functioning radio station provides a range of community-based programming including a live morning show, sports updates and feature programs. The radio station is one of Pickering College’s unique features, giving students the opportunity to become on-air hosts, producers, editors and interviewers, as they help manage the station’s dayto-day operations. PC also has a communications technology course on radio and audio production.

Stream 102.7 CHOP FM and listen live from anywhere!

Thank you to the Waters family for your continued support of CHOP FM and introducing generations of PC students to broadcasting.