News Talk 770 Morning Host Bruce Kenyon will retire this summer.
When he was 15 years old, Bruce Kenyon’s voice started to change, as it does for all teenage boys. One of his buddies’ older brothers, who worked at a local radio station, was impressed with what he heard.
“He told me, ‘You have a pretty good voice for radio,’” says Kenyon.
On Tuesday morning, the 62-year-old reflects on a life behind the microphone, a stellar four-decade career that’s taken him across the country and into Canadians’ homes as a trusted voice on current trends and stories of the day.
Earlier that morning, Kenyon, whose tenure as the morning host with New Talk Radio 770 wraps up in August, welcomed Gord Gillies, longtime Global News Hour co-anchor, as the man who will take over the chair he’s sat in each weekday morning in Calgary for the past 17 years.
“It was emotional, but not as bad as I thought,” says Kenyon, who says he’s been thinking for some time of closing this chapter of his life. “I think it’ll sink in more when I’m closer to my last day in August.”
If there is one reigning emotion for Kenyon these days — in fact, for most of the past four decades — it’s gratitude.
“I’ve been so incredibly lucky,” he says. “I’ve had so many benefactors who have helped me along the way, I’ve had bosses who trusted me and a wonderful wife.”
Growing up in Scarborough, Ontario, the second of four children in a typical middle class family, Kenyon’s route to his vocational bliss was, as so often is the case, rather circuitous.
“I did all the things you do when you’re young, worked in a warehouse, backpacked across Europe,” he says. “But being told I had a voice for radio, well, it stuck with me.”
After his travels, Kenyon signed up for a six-month course in broadcasting and soon found himself working as an operator at a Peterborough radio station.
“It was just a matter of working your way up and getting some lucky breaks,” he says of the journey that took him to Edmonton and Montreal before landing in Calgary in 2000 to join the team at what was then called QR77.
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I got to know Bruce when i was very young at K97 in Edmonton.Great guy taught me so much about radio.Played on the same summer hockey team ALBERT.Full contact to boot.He is a legend in canadian radio.Bruce is still talked about in Edmonton as he was a true professional.He will be missed on the airwaves.Bruce thanks for everything.