Cam Cathcart, 83, on June 5, unexpectedly at home. Cathcart spent 25 years with CBC as a reporter, foreign correspondent, producer, and on-air host. As foreign correspondent he served in Washington and at the UN, covering a wide range of stories from Watergate to the 1976 Presidential Election. After returning to Canada, he was News Director at CBC-TV Toronto for four years, before returning to BC in 1985 and co-hosting CBC network show “The Best Years.” Cathcart was appointed head of the International Press Centre for the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games and went on to work with CKST, CKNW and CJNW as an announcer. He joined Stanton Associates as a media trainer in 2002. Among other volunteer endeavours, Cathcart chaired the Vancouver Remembrance Day Committee at Victory Square and held the honorary rank of Major in the B.C. Regiment (DCO).
Gino Belmonte, 61, on May 29 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. After graduating from the University of Toronto, Belmonte started his career as a media buyer with Foster Advertising before moving into broadcast media research. Belmonte joined Rogers Media in 1998 as Director of Research, Television. In 2012, he founded his own consultancy, Belmonte Insights. He joined thinkTV Canada as Director of Research in 2018.
Peter “Joe” Kobluk, on May 26. Kobluk began his radio career in 1942 as a student announcer with CJAT Trail in 1942. He became a full-time announcer in 1944 and rose to the position of General Manager in 1960 and Managing Director in 1965. Kobluk left CJAT in 1976 and joined the corporate office of the Trail Kootenay Savings Credit Union where he stayed into his 80s.
Rick Rice, 87, on May 17. Rice started his career as a cameraman for the CBC, following his graduation from Ryerson’s Radio & TV Arts Program. Over the years, Rice worked on programs from arts to news and live sports in Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto, eventually becoming producer and director of “The National” and “Hockey Night in Canada.” Among his career highlights was the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble. Rice and his late wife Joanie, who met working at the public broadcaster, retired to Victoria in 1989.
