Tom McGouran
Weekdays, 5:30am - 9am
.......after growing up in Toronto and starting my career in small town Cobourg, Ont. at a Classical music station, CFMX.....you heard right, not Classic Rock.....Classical music...(it was one of 150 stations across the country I had sent a tape to, out of Radio and Television Arts at Seneca College)....I wanted in so bad, I told them I knew everything about Classical music, and they were kind enough to still let me keep my first job, after they discovered Ididn't. I still remember kindly old Mrs Croft was the landlord of the house where I rented a room and some fridge space. I could usually fit some cheese and a six pack in my alotted slot. I needed little else, outside the burning desire to 'be on the radio' since I was about 5 years old, and listening in the morning to my Mom's favorite station.
Once my foot was in the door, it didn't take me long to fanagggle my way into filling in on the AM side of the company at CHUC. It was great, local, quaint, small town radio, with everything from the death announcements , livestock and produce prices, to 'tradio', a kind of live radio yard sale, to country music mixed with Sinatra and rock and roll. You handles every job and learned everything there, and I've always looked back at that time as both fun and invalualble. Unforgettable too. And how can you not like a station called Chuck!
From there it was a quick call from a guy named Jerry Lucky,....yes Lucky....and I was, ...I was off to Saskatoon to work at a progressive rock station called Stereo 103, which, after being bought by a larger chain, is now known as C95. At the time, it was one of the last independant rock stations, owned by a car dealer, who let us do our thing under Lucky's guidance. How could you go wrong with a combo like that. That is where I honed my craft and blossomed into a personality on the air for the first time.
Two years in that great city, and tons of fun and great experience, finally brought the call from Winnipeg in the fall of '82, and with the exception of a short jaunt out to Vancouver in '94, where, despite enjoying the coast and the people, I promptly had my ass shipped out of town a few months later, I've been in Wiinnipeg, my adopted home, ever since.
All of my kids were born here, Derek, Shay, Riley, Rory and Keenan are true Manitobans. Although the older three are grown and out working, they have chosen to stay here for the same reason I have...we love it."
This has become one hell of a special home for me, and it is the greatest pleasure in the world to get up in the early hours of the day and come into Osborne village to connect and have fun with the city and province every morning. It's the greatest gig in the world, and I hope it never ends.....
I love this city, the people and the opportunity to, as we like to say, 'tell bad jokes' every morining with Joe, KK and the Coach.
