After 36.8 years in the radio biz, broadcaster Doug Jones tried to go out quietly.
Little did he know that Prince George wouldn’t let him go into retirement without a fuss.
“It’s been overwhelming – the response I’ve gotten after I announced my retirement,” Jones said with a little smile and a head shake of disbelief.
He was planning on leaving the morning Rewind Radio show on 99.3 The Drive in the summer to make it an even 37 years.
“I call it 36.8 but I‘m not sure that’s mathematically correct but my wife, Lisa, said I wasn’t stickin’ around ‘til June - we got places to go,” Jones laughed.
So he went.
Jones calls Lisa ‘the hot wife’ so he’s happy to be with her wherever their new travel trailer takes them. She’s been retired for a little more than a year and has waited patiently for Jones to join her ever since.
“Whichever way we turn out of the driveway, that’s the direction we’ll go first,” Jones said about travel plans. Not all their trips will be that spontaneous but for right now that’s how it’ll be, he added.
“I haven’t been north of Dawson Creek or west of Smithers in the whole time I’ve been here,” Jones admitted a bit sheepishly. So they’ll explore parts of B.C. further afield right away.
But let’s go back to the beginning. To start his career here, Jones came from Ontario where he began his broadcasting career about 45 years ago in Wawa – no, seriously, it’s a real place. Then moved on to Thunder Bay and Guelph and then took the radio job here in Prince George.
As with many who came here for the job, the intention was to stay for a year or two and move on.
The main inspiration to stay in P.G. all these years?
“The hot wife,” Jones deadpanned. “That’s why I stayed in Prince George.”
And what will he miss most about the job?
“The people, of course,” Jones said of his many, many coworkers and those he interacted with as listeners of his ever-popular morning radio show. “That was the best part about it. The camaraderie and the joking around – that’s what I’m going to miss the most.”
Mike Benny, another radio broadcaster at the station, was a huge influence in Jones’ life before Benny died in 2021 after a two-year battle with lung cancer.
“It was all about PMA with Mike,” Jones recalled. “Positive Mental Attitude was his approach and he was a huge influence on me and just a great friend. He always looked at how to get the good out of something, never looked at the negative. Working with Mike Benny was just incredible.”
Right up to his last week of work Jones was known for bringing muffins to staff at the station. He would buy them or bake them – depending on the day and he went through a healthy phase when creating his muffins – silly Jones – and when Benny bit into one his response was polite but definitive.
“Not enough milk in the world…” Jones recalled Benny said about the sugar-reduced muffin.
“So that Christmas Mike bought me for Christmas a 101 muffin recipe book so about every 10 pages he had put little notes ‘don’t forget the sugar!’” Jones smiled. “I still have that book.”
His latest recipe for his (in)famous bran muffins includes raisins, craisins and pumpkin seeds – much better.
Jones fondly recalls the couches outside the broadcasting booths where coworkers would gather after work to debrief, throw ideas around and just shoot the breeze.
“It’s been so much fun working with so many different people,” Jones said. “It was a community within the building.”
And the listeners, Jones added. Ah, the listeners.
“It just blows me away,” Jones said. “Having that relationship with the listener – you don’t see them, you don’t know their names, and they’re driving along in the car and it’s a one-way conversation and you want to include them so you’re trying to say something that they’re thinking and make them go ha-ha-ha (giving a little chuckle) and if you’ve done that, you’ve done your job.”
And he’s seen so much technological advancement over the years.
From literally cutting and taping audio tape together to edit copy to digital advancements that have taken the focus from physically creating content to instead focusing on its quality as the priority.
It was never more clear to Jones that it didn’t really matter what bells and whistles and other sound affects were used when he tried to do a funny pre-recorded bit.
He put that piece out on the airways, so proud of what he had done. But waiting for a reaction there was only radio silence.
Soon after Jones told a silly, off-the-cuff story about how his son sneezed at the dinner table and the hilarity that ensued as a result. He was overwhelmed with his audience’s reaction – people even stopped him on the street to tell him how much they enjoyed that story.
The takeaway? Relatable content is king.
“Lesson learned,” Jones said.
Jones is almost 67 years old and looks back on his work life with great fondness.
“And my whole career has been about goofing – just being goofy,” Jones smiled. “And it’s been great.”
