Broadcasting: Al Hebert recognized for more than 50 years on the airwaves

I5

Peter Assaff
the Northern Light

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A longtime Bathurst broadcaster was honoured last week for more than 50 years on the airwaves.

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Peter Assaff/Northern Light Photo

Gary Aube, right, was on hand last week as Al Hebert was recognized for more than 50 years of broadcasting in Bathurst. The pair worked together at CKBC-AM in the late 1960s.

Al Hebert was the guest of honour on Nov. 17 at a private reception held at the Main Street studios of radio station MAX 104.9. Although he retired in 1997, he still hosts a weekly country music program on Sunday evenings.

"I came in to record my Country Gold show "¦ and I walked into the main studio and there was a whole bunch of people in there," said Hebert. "I was tremendously surprised."

In addition to the current staff of MAX 104.9 FM, employees from the former CKBC-AM were also on hand, including announcers who shared the airwaves with Hebert in each of the last five decades.

"It has been a heck of a day, it has been really nice," he smiled. "You look back at 50 years "¦ it seems just like yesterday."

Hebert first joined the staff of CKBC as a teenager in 1959.

"I remember coming to work at the radio station when (former owner) Bill Winton was here," recalled Hebert, who was named the Broadcaster of The Year by the Atlantic Association of Broadcasters in 1988. "He looked at me and said, 'Do you think you can write some copy?'. I said, 'I can try.' Here I am 50 years later, looking back at the first day I went in on March 15, 1959. It is incredible."

From those humble beginnings of writing copy for commercials, Hebert went on to become program director, and even served as station manager for a time.

"At first I was just writing copy upstairs (at the station's original location on Golf Street), and doing a little program in the morning for 15 minutes," he recalled. "That is how it really started actually. Then I started to do a show in the afternoons on Saturday, probably about three or four years later. The show was actually called, strangely enough, The Teen Time Top 30 Show.

"For a young rookie in radio that wasn't easy to say," he laughed. "We played a lot of the old rock 'n roll stuff, the Beatles and some of the stuff back then that was really popular. It ran for four hours actually."

Among those gathered at the radio station last week was Gary Aube, who worked at CKBC in the late 1960s before moving on to work at some of the best known radio stations in the country.

"I started in 1967 as a high school reporter for a program called Mod Viewpoint," laughed Aube, who moved back to Bathurst after retiring two years ago. "I'm really pleased to be here. There are lots of good memories of Al."

He said Bathurst has been fortunate to have been able to listen to Hebert all of these years.

"He is just a great man and it is a real credit to him that "¦ he was able to ply his craft in his hometown," pointed out Aube, who said the pair also shared a love for cars. "He was a car guy and I was a car guy. too, so I could relate to him. I remember he had a black '66 Chevy Caprice, which at the time was quite a ride."

In addition to sitting behind a microcphone for CKBC, Hebert was the long-time track announcer for stock car racing at the former Danny's Speedbowl.

He was also well known for his hockey broadcasts, as play-by-play man for the Bathurst Alpine Papermakers. But it is his love of country music that keeps him working in radio today.

"It is something very dear to my heart. I had Country Gold on before I left the radio station back in 1997. It was always a very popular program, and when I was invited to come back and do it again I was thrilled to death. I'm really enjoying it, and I think the listeners are as well."

In addition to those gathered at the radio station last week, several former colleagues who were uable toattend in person sent personalized greetings that were played on the air by MAX drive home host John LeBlanc. Included were well wishes from Senator Jim Munson, who worked at CKBC in the 1960s; and Ted Daigle, who like Hebert, is a member of the New Brunswick Country Music Hall of Fame.

Once the celebration was over, and he sat down to work on taping another edition of Country Gold, Hebert couldn't help but reflect on the changes he's seen in radio over the years.

"When I started, we were working with turntables," he concluded. "When I work now, doing Country Gold, it is all computerized. You know darn well that when you play a song it is going to play well, and it is not going to skip on you. There have been some changes, but it is for the good - there's no question about that."