About Charlee
It’s like I’m living an Elton John song! Circle of Life. I’m back in my hometown where this radio thing started for me. I was in grade 12 at Burnaby North, just a typical teen looking for a direction in life. Well ok, maybe I wasn’t looking THAT hard : ). I did, however, listen to the radio incessantly in my bedroom behind locked doors (usually because I was grounded!). I’ll never forget the night I heard my favourite DJ talk about a contest to ‘Be Your Own DJ For An Hour”. I just knew I would win and I did! That ‘hour’ has ‘circled’ the clock for 24 years of my radio ‘life’!
I enrolled in B.C.I.T’s two-year Broadcast Communications program from 1983 - 85. While I was a student, I was also a volunteer at the radio station where I won the contest. I was in their face so much that they finally relented and put me on the payroll. I couldn’t be happier! Radio school by day; filing records and operating the radio buttons for the ‘real’ DJs at night.
My first real radio job was in 1985 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. After only 14 months at CHAB, the competition in Regina, 620 CKCK, offered me a better position and more money. Hey, in early radio that was a difference between no-name brand macaroni and having enough money to buy the ketchup! Money talked honey! I was only in Regina for two months when Vancouver wanted me back, in the same building where I won the contest and was the wide-eyed volunteer. There’s that ‘Circle’ again!
I was living a dream. It was Expo 86 and I was at Hot Hits LG73 with the radio legends I grew up listening to! Four years there and another four at Vancouver’s Kiss FM and I found myself ‘Alberta bound’ in 1995 to Lite 96 , our sister station. (The last couple of years also heard on Clear FM Winnipeg). Gosh, that’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had!
So here’s me, 13 years later and ‘Charlee’s Got Her Groove Back’. I’m so excited to be back in this building (where the former Kiss FM lived) with familiar faces and voices, and I’m looking forward to doing the girlfriend thing with you. Join me weekday mornings from 5:30 - 9 on Vancouver’s CLEAR choice, 104.9 Clear FM.
