Doug Caldwell, on June 12. Following his graduation from the Radio Television Program at NSCC Kingstec, Caldwell got his start in broadcasting with Annapolis Valley Radio in Kentville, NS in the early 1980s, holding roles from copywriter to on-air and assistant music director. He joined Q104 Halifax in 1983 as Music Director and an on-air personality, before moving into a more than two-decade career in music marketing, initially as National Promotion Director for Island Music Canada and then National Marketing Manager for Virgin Music Canada from 1991-2001, working with acts from the Spice Girls to Lenny Kravitz and Smashing Pumpkins. He went on to work as the marketing lead for the Associated Labels Department at EMI Music Canada. Concurrently, Caldwell taught courses on Music Industry Marketing and the History of Pop Music at Toronto’s Trebas Institute, George Brown College, and the Metalworks Institute of Sound & Music Production in Mississauga. In more recent years, Caldwell had worked in sales and marketing with Toronto indie label Sparks Music and served as a contributing writer on Jeff Woods’ nationally syndicated show “The Legends of Classic Rock.”
Walter Kemp, 85, on June 9. CKDU Halifax’s longest-serving programmer, Kemp had hosted “Saturday Morning Musical Box” since February 1985 — the first week the Dalhousie University campus station hit the airwaves. He went on to serve the radio station for 38 years. Born in Montreal and educated in Toronto, Harvard, and Oxford, Kemp founded and chaired the Music Department at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier), before moving to Halifax in 1977 to become Chair of the Dalhousie Music Department and Director of the Dalhousie Chorale. Since 2005, Kemp had served as Artistic and Administrative Director of Opera Nova Scotia.
Scott Bodnarchuk, 63, on June 5. The General Sales Manager for Rogers Sports & Media’s radio stations in Atlantic Canada for the last 12 years, Bodnarchuk claimed “he never worked a day in his life” because of his passion for radio sales, according to his obituary. Based in Halifax, Bodnarchuk joined Rogers in 2011 as Retail Sales Manager, Atlantic. Prior to joining Rogers, Bodnarchuk ran the Local Management Agreement (LMA) between CHUM’s stations in Halifax and Newcap Radio. Read Danny Kingsbury’s tribute here.
Joy Rosen, 65, on June 9. Originally from Montreal, after completing her B.A. in English at the University of Toronto, Rosen found herself with a desire to make documentary films which took her to Syracuse University, where she graduated with a M.Sc. in Television, Radio and Film. Rosen founded Portfolio Entertainment with Lisa Olfman in 1991 after the company they were working at downsized, building the venture into a globally-recognized production, distribution, and animation company with a catalogue of over 2,000 episodes of animation, kids, scripted and digital media content. Together with Olfman, Rosen was awarded the 2015 WIFT-T Crystal Award for Outstanding Achievement in Business and the Rotman Canadian Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Ab Douglas (Abram Driediger), 93, on March 21. After graduating from Queen’s University, Douglas started his broadcasting career in 1951 in Manitoba. He went on to become CTV’s Parliamentary Bureau Chief and co-anchored the first CTV National News program with Baden Langdon (later with Peter Jennings) in November 1962. In 1967, he joined CBC to produce documentaries and work as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, where he remained until 1972. He also served as the national reporter in Edmonton and Vancouver. In 1980, he went on to a teaching position at the University of Regina School of Journalism. He concluded his career helping set up the Inuit broadcasting network, based in Nunavut. Retiring in the 1980s, he ran the family cattle and horse ranch near Maple Creek, SK until moving to Kelowna in 1989. In 1993, he published On Foreign Assignment: The Inside Story of Journalism’s Elite Corps, taking readers “behind-the-scenes to a formal dinner with DeGaulle and to a beach party at the Kennedys.’
