Jack (J.P.) Finnigan was one of the funniest announcers on or off the air. He came to CFOR from Chatham. Jack hosted the afternoon shift in Orillia. In 1960, he left for Kitchener's CKKW. In 1962 he was located at CKEY in Toronto. Jack moved to CJAD Montreal in 1966 and took over the afternoon shift in 1972 where he remained for 33 years. He left radio because of poor health in 2005 and he died in December 2006. Jack was in the audience when his actress daughter Jennifer Finnigan won a day-time Emmy for her work on The Bold and the Beautiful.  ​More on Jack Finnigan  Click here for Finnigan on CKEY promotion flyer

George Franks, was a very colourful announcer, especially on his Rolling North Friday night show. George was a Peterboro boy who became a CHEX operator. He moved on to Hamilton's CHML where he operated for Paul Reid, Gordie Tapp, Paul Hanover and George Wilson. In 1955 he became an announcer at Lindsay on CKLY. He then migrated to CFOR. George spent the summer of 1959 with C-HOW in Welland. Later, his first TV gig was CKCO TV in Kitchener but soon he was back at CHEX-TV where he created a commercial spokes-character "Elwood Crantson." Later he returned to CFOR. Around this time, CKO, a leading station in the all news radio network, was underway in Toronto run by former colleague Taylor Parnaby who hired him as a news announcer.  More on George Franks/Elwood Cranston

Taylor "Hap" Parnaby started as a 15-year-old operator but with a voice beyond his years, he was a natural in front of the mic. He eventually made his way to CHUM-AM in Toronto in the early 60s under director Bill Drylie. Hap eventually left CHUM and became president of the all-news Canadian network, Newsradio, based at CKO in Toronto. When financial difficulties in the mid 80s closed the 45-station network, he joined the news staff at CFRB. He retired in the summer of 2010.

George Franks, John Gilbert 

Don Wilcox was CKAR's programme director. In 1960 he was brought  to CKKW Kitchener by programme director Dave Wright who worked with Don at CKAR when he was on loan from CHOW in Welland for the summer of 1959.   Don quickly moved into TV production at CKCO where he became promotion director. Later he became general manager and eventually vice president.Don was involved in a great many projects through his career, including executive production of a musical TV special featuring famed jazz band leader Stan Kenton. In 1995, after 35 years, Don retired. 

Karen Hazzard did continuity. Later she left radio to become a noted producer and casting director for TV, film and theatre. Karen was the first woman commercial agency producer in Toronto (Young and Rubican Advertising). She opened her casting company in 1973. Cast hundreds of films, TV shows and stage plays. Most notable film is the classic, A Christmas Story (1983). She has occasionally taken roles as an actress.  After 50 years in the business she teaches directors auditioning techniques at Toronto Film School and at Seneca College in Toronto.  htttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0003402/#CastingDirector 

Garth Thomas occupied every position possible at CKAR-AM and was still with the station when it changed to FM. He became the most recognized voice in sports reporting in Muskoka. In 2008, Garth was the host of the Algonquin Park Run for Canada. He was interviewed during the event. 

Jack Horahan came to CKAR straight from Ryerson and established himself in the noon to 5 p.m. slot. He stayed for two years and caught on as a newsman at CHUM under Bill Drylie. After a short time he took a night shift at CFRB news for a few months before returning to the teaching profession.

Ken "Jiggs" McDonald, sports announcer. He came to CFOR from Lindsay, Ontario, (CKLY 910) in May of 1958, had a six week stint in Peterborough (CKPT) and returned to CFOR. He stayed until May 1967 when he left to work for Jack Kent Cooke and the Los Angeles Kings as their first play-by-play announcer. In 1972 he moved to Atlanta and in 1980 to the N.Y. Islanders. He did ABC Olympics from Calgary in 1988, TNT Olympics from Albertville, France, in 1992, CTV Olympic (Basketball) from Barcelona in 1992 (working with the great Jack Donahue) TNT Olympics 1994 from Lillehammer, Norway. From 1995 to 1997 he called Toronto Maple Leafs mid-week TV games on CHCH and Global with Harry Neale. Jiggs did hockey for the USA Network, ESPN, FOX and SportsChannel America. In all, he was the voice for more than 3,000 NHL games and is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.    ​More on Jiggs

Barry Norman was another classmate of Bud Riley in Ryerson's Radio and TV Arts programme in Toronto. He joined CFOR as a news reporter during summer vacations. He spent most of his career at the station, holding several positions including sales and station manager. He managed the station and the Orillia Sun newspaper when both were owned by Telemedia. Barry retired after 50 years and died suddenly in Sept. 2010 just a couple of weeks after an informal CFOR reunion at Jiggs MacDonald's summer home on Lake Simcoe. More on Barry 

Richard Wright, a former Bud Riley classmate, wrote local commercials and later become a noted Canadian novelist. Early in his writing career, this graduate of Trent University in Peterborough worked as an editor at Macmillan Publishing in Toronto. His own first writing effort was a children's book. His early novels, Weekend Man and In The Middle of a Life, became CanLit favourites. He won the Governor General's Award plus two Giller prizes for literature and was awarded the Order of Canada and an Honorary Doctorate from Trent University. He continues his production of fiction full-time since retiring from teaching at Ridley College in St. Catharines in 2001. His most recent work is Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard (2010)     More on Dick Wright         

Jim Bishop came to CKAR Hunstville as a local arena manager and sports announcer. He was a former associate of sports guru Lloyd Percival, famed coach and owner of Sports College. In 1962 Jim relocated at CKLB in Oshawa and founded the Oshawa Green Gaels lacrosse club which won seven national championships. Detroit Red Wings hired him as vice president in 1969 but in 1973 he returned to lacrosse establishing a team in Montreal. Two years later he was back in Oshawa coaching and managing junior B lacrosse. In the early 80s he created a sports clothing company. For his decades of dedication to the sport, he was awarded the Lester B. Pearson award. 

Click here for more on Jim Bishop​​

Ken Robertson (Vernon Kenward Robertson) was a stringer for the Toronto Telegram and Bud Riley's go-to guy for information about Orillia and of the town's denizens. After his shift, Bud would catch up to Ken shortly after 1 a.m. and hang out with him at the police station or drive down to the Barrie TV station (CKVR) and sometimes visit the Tely's Toronto editorial room. Bud learned everything about being a reporter from Ken. Together they covered several car and train accidents and fires in the district. Eventually the Telegram brought Ken down to Toronto as a full-time reporter-photographer. He was often assigned as city editor. When the Tely closed in 1971, there was no question that he would be a necessary component of the Toronto Sun, the new tabloid newspaper that rose from the Tely ashes. Ken Robertson earned a reputation as one of the top newspaper feature writers in the city. A sailor, he wrote for and edited a marine magazine. When he left the Sun, he became Communications director for the Ontario Government's Natural Resources Ministry. In retirement, he lived in a house he built himself in the woods south of Victoria Harbour, Ontario, and wrote a book about the house called Windcharm. While continuing to write his own projects, he edited other writer's books. Ken died at 88 on December 22, 2010. 

Bud Riley had a productive 40-year career as a writer, radio host and TV commentator. His first announcing assignment came as a student in the Radio and TV Arts department at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He created, wrote and performed on his own weekly programme which aired on CJRT-FM on Friday nights. As a student, he read news, sports, weather reports and occasional commercials. He also took roles in radio plays and performed other on-air duties such as creating sound effects for dramas and acting as background or crowd noise when a script called for it. No assignment was too small. After Ryerson, he was ready to start his professional life. 

                                   EARLY BROADCAST YEARS 

CFOR-AM, ORILLIA, ONTARIO. Bud's first professional radio job came in May of 1958. Programme director Pete McGarvey assigned him to the night shift from 5 p.m. to midnight. As an announcer/operator, he hosted radio programmes, read news, weather and commercials. His day started with "The Mail Bag", a mix of recordings requested by listeners. A Friday night, half-hour feature was Bud's "C-FOR Ranch" with country favourites and on Sunday afternoons he hosted two programmes, one was an hour of Broadway selections and the other was "Waltz Time." Since 1940, Bud and his family spent summers at Fountains Beach on Lake Simcoe, just a few doors away from famed musician Glen Gould. ​​​​​Click here for a Packet and Times article dated April 28, 2007 containing Bud's recollection of an encounter with Gould in the Fall of 1958. 

CKAR-AM, HUNTSVILLE, ONTARIO. In 1959, Bud joined his former Ryerson classmates at a newly established radio station in the Muskoka district. CKAR Staff were all former Ryerson classmates of Bud. It was a further learning experience. One major assignment was as an air-borne traffic reporter. Several times a week Bud was required to take one of the CKAR'S Ford station wagons (Courtesy-Kars) on the road to hunt down tourists and others for interviews. 

The station manager discovered that Bud was a competent commercial writer and drafted him to assist Karen Hazzard in the continuity department in writing many of the local commercials. 

Peter Rowe started at CFOR-AM as assistant engineer to George Slinn. Slinn designed many of CFOR's innovative pieces of equipment, including the main board. He left radio to teach electronics at Orillia High School. Peter stayed on for more than four decades as chief engineer.

Jim Gibson was the station manager for a short time when he was hired by consultant Gordon Burnett. He left Huntsville to become a salesman for the North Bay, Ontario, radio station CFCH. 

Lou Leslie (Louis Gwartz) was CKAR's newsman. His career eventually took him to L.A. Calif. where he worked for CBS and later as a news writer at KABC-TV.​

CFOR reunion 2011. Singer/songwriter Gord Lightfoot

CFOR Sales Manager was Bill Pratt, a dynamic personality who put many Ontario radio stations on solid financial footing. Some of his other stations were CKKW Kitchener and C-HOW Welland. Pratt's second in charge was Bill Gillis who worked with Pratt at several radio station sales departments before arriving in Orillia. ​

Murray Shields was the station's chief engineer who was in charge of putting CKAR on the air for the first time in 1958. He was also in charge of the station's satellite transmitter in Parry Sound.