I had to wait a bit before I wrote this Blog. I needed to process things a little bit.
Last Wednesday we lost a Community Icon. Ray Zinck, Newsperson and former owner of CJLS passed away at the age of 72 from cancer.
Ray was an amazing guy, and one I looked up to. He was the Greatest Newsperson I’ve ever known, and the list of awards he collected certainly attested to that. He was a storyteller in his soul. He could put together a documentary like no one I’ve ever seen. Even technically he was a wonder to behold; he did his work before digital sound, and watching him splice tape together with a razor and tape was something.
He also wrote. He published a few books, and I know that he had been writing stories of his youth for years. Not to be published, but to be given to members of his family.
And I loved him like a father.
I am a truly lucky guy. I have had three distinct Father Figures in my life; my Dad, Chris Perry and Ray Zinc. From Ray I learned so much. From the quietly dignified way he conducted himself in public, the the passion he had for our community, to his love of radio and of telling those important stories that needed to be told.
I’m so going to miss him.
When longtime CJLS Radio Personality Wayne Norman passed, Ray put together an audio presentation for the funeral that he called “For Wayne”. I realized that I don’t have one snippet of audio of Ray’s voice in my collection. So I couldn’t do that. What I can do is remember a time when the region, the province, and sometimes the country tuned in to hear a story that Ray was telling. A story worth telling.
The day after Ray passed, I did a video of my thoughts on Ray. It feels inadequate. But here it is.
