The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Andy Stewart wasn't about to let one of the biggest interviews of his career slip through his fingers. The year was circa 1962, the location North Dakota. Stewart was ready to document the insights of Dan Blocker, who as Hoss Cartwright on Bonanza had emerged as one of TV's biggest stars. But after Blocker wrapped up his scheduled public appearance, riding a horse and chatting up the crowd, the husky star evidently forgot the promise he had made to sit down with Stewart. As a police car whisked Blocker away from an adoring public and one surprised radio announcer, Stewart paid close attention to where the vehicle headed. After a 90-minute search that included trailing a waitress like some kind of amateur PI, Stewart, tape recorder in hand, found his man dining in a restaurant by himself. 'I ran right into him,' recalls Stewart. 'He said, 'Well, hi, Andy. How are you?' So I had a 20-minute interview with him. He told me all about his acting and how he got started.' That story says a lot about Stewart, the CFAR announcer whose dogged determination lives on decades later in a vastly different broadcast universe. It's also one of many fascinating tales the long-time Flin Flonner has accumulated in a lifetime spanning 81 years, multiple communities and several brushes with fame. Born on May 7, 1931 in Viking, Alberta, Stewart was a farmboy from one of those massive families _ eight boys and four girls _ common of the era. He grew up enamoured by the baritone voices that boomed from the family radio. So it was no surprise when he left home in his early 20s with a radio career in mind. Stewart studied the craft at Edmonton's Alberta College. As part of his training he would introduce guests on a radio program on a station called CKUA. Interestingly, in the control room those days was none other than Robert Goulet, the handsome future star of song and film. Stewart remembers him as 'a very nice chap.' After completing his studies, Stewart was hired by a radio station in the northern Alberta community of Grand Prairie in 1955. He packed up his blue '41 Ford and made the drive from Edmonton. Working with bulky equipment that is now likely in a museum, Stewart spun records and brought his personable charm and smooth, calm voice to the airwaves. He still remembers the day in 1956 he first played a song called Hound Dog by some guy called Elvis Presley. He was not impressed. 'I couldn't get used to this rock, this was something new to us,' Stewart says. 'And I said, 'What kind of music is this? This is ridiculous. It's not going to make it at all.' Well, you know what happened with Elvis.' Though Stewart was doing what he wanted to do _ or thought he wanted to do _ deejaying wasn't quite the dream job he had envisioned. After a couple of years in Grand Prairie, he left to embark on a rather drastic career change, joining the Royal Canadian Air Force. See 'Stationed' on pg. Continued from pg. Post-training, he was stationed at a control tower in Gimli, Manitoba. He put his radio voice to good use guiding pilots who were practicing landing the T-33 jet. When his three-year commitment was up, Stewart realized the Air Force wasn't for him. He opted to give radio a second chance. He headed east to Ontario, where he would make two stops, the second of which _ Wingham, northwest of Kitchener _ was particularly memorable. It was there Stewart met a young nurse named Isabel, whom he wed in 1960. In 1961, the same year their only child, daughter Mary, was born, they moved to Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where Andy landed yet another radio post. All that moving around, so customary among small-town broadcasters, was part of the appeal for Stewart. It helped keep things fresh. 'You get tired of a certain station, maybe you don't like the way they operate things and things like that and so you say, 'Okay, let's try something new,'' he says. Trying something new never intimidated Stewart. Among his talents beyond radio is his command of the fiddle, an instrument he has played with various bands, sometimes at high-profile events. While living in Lloydminster, Alberta, circa 1966, Stewart was part of a band performing at a New Democratic Party event. Leader Tommy Douglas, the father of Medicare, was in the back of the hall. Stewart did (and still does) a bang-on impersonation of the diminutive Douglas, and on this night he couldn't resist sharing it. 'So I came up and said (in Douglas' voice), 'Being the leader of the New Democratic Party is like milking a cow in a hail storm _ you never know when lightning will strike and you'll be left holding the bag,'' Stewart says. 'And he (Douglas) said, 'You do a better job than I do!'' By the late 1960s, Stewart found himself in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where he focused more on selling advertising than he did working on-air. Phone call While there in 1970 he received a phone call that would ultimately put an end to his town-hopping ways. A little station called CFAR in Flin Flon was hiring. 'I said, 'Where is Flin Flon?'' Stewart recalls. 'I had hardly heard of that place. So I looked at the map and I said, 'Yeah, I can come down.'' But Stewart was not exactly dazzled by his new workplace, which was based in a renovated old house downtown. 'I walked in there and the floors were wooden and there were cigarette butt burns in them,' he says, adding with a laugh: 'I couldn't understand why that building didn't burn down a long time ago.' Within a year CFAR would relocate to more appropriate digs on Green Street, by which time Stewart was an established media personality in the community. For a time he hosted a morning show, Stew for Breakfast, playing mostly country music. In the afternoons he put his people skills to use selling advertising. Outside of the station, Stewart became an active volunteer, joining the Lions Club and, by virtue of his military service, the Royal Canadian Legion. He continued to fiddle before crowds large and small. When groups needed live entertainment for an event, Stewart was often asked to perform. Indicative of his musical gift, Stewart has racked up 34 trophies and awards in old time and novelty fiddling. He makes playing the fiddle look easy, but as any amateur who has ever picked one up can tell you, it's quite the opposite. 'It's one of the toughest instruments to play,' Stewart notes. Though many people are aware of Stewart's talent for the fiddle, few know he is also an accomplished five-bin bowler. While in Flin Flon, he has amassed two dozen trophies in the sport. At CFAR, Stewart would blend his on-air and sales abilities for a remarkable 27 years before retiring from the station in 1997. It was time for a new chapter in his life. Yet he never completely left broadcasting. Stewart still voluntarily hosts the Legion branch's weekly program on CFAR, Meet the Legion. In 2006 Stewart officially joined the Half Century Club of The Canadian Association of Broadcasters. The enormity of his framed certificate reflects the rarity of the achievement. Though not originally from Flin Flon, Stewart is among its most recognizable residents _ and not just for his voice. His trademarks are his attire, the ever-present fedora and trench coat, and his preferred mode of transportation _ a white, boat-like '85 Lincoln. Stewart bought the car nearly new in 1985 and has been driving it ever since. Incredibly, it has nearly 500,000 kilometres on it with relatively few signs of wear. Now approaching his 82nd birthday, Stewart remains full of life. He keeps busy with the Legion and the Lions, and as a licensed auctioneer. Of course going on-air each Saturday is still a treat, though Stewart is struck by just how much radio has evolved. The turntables and vinyl records of yesteryear have been replaced with computer monitors and keyboards. 'If you were to walk into my station back in '55 in Grand Prairie and walk into a station today, you wouldn't believe that it was even a radio station,' Stewart marvels. Then again, who would have believed that almost six decades after he started, Andy Stewart would still be hitting the airwaves, a bright smile across his face.
