My friend and mentor Vic Waters has passed away at 89. Vic would have celebrated  his 90th in September. A generous man, stoic by nature, he kept his personal life separate from his radio and television career.  Vic was like a surrogate father to me and Fred Latremouille at different times during his tenure as program director at CJOR. The station is now 600AM until they turn out the lights in November. Isn’t it ironic? The man most associated with the station through four decades passes on as does the station he worked for.

As a young man he took time to teach me the basics of radio and how to communicate with an audience.  Fred tells me he did the same for him. Vic also hired Frosty Forst when I left CJOR and moved to CKWX. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for our early careers and beyond.

When Vic left CJOR in 1969 he took over program duties at Premier Cablevision and pioneered programming for that channel  in the early days of access cable. I kept in touch with him over the years and I  was on hand when they inducted him into the B.C. Entertainment Hall of Fame.

Vic had an uncanny ability to take a simple idea or word and expand upon it to create a story.  He should have written books as he was an outstanding storyteller. He was admired by his peers. Radio stars (remember when we had those) such as Jack Cullen and Wilf Ray thought him to be a great deejay with impeccable taste in music of all kinds. If Cullen was wild and colorful, Vic Waters was descriptive and poetic. Cullen was a free spirit and Vic Waters was a sophisticated purveyor of words.

Vic visits me at CISL, 1995

It wasn’t all fun for Vic as program director having the likes of Pat Burns, Jack Webster, Jack Wasserman, and others to contend with. Yes, they were great talents but could try your patience with their personalities. He survived it all. He is missed by those who knew him as the consummate radio man.  Vic Waters loved radio and was as much a part of Vancouver in his time as Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge.