During our Spring 2020, Powered by People fundraising campaign, we were posting personal essays by CKUA announcers and listeners about what our service means to them. In that same spirit, here’s one by our beloved Mid-Morning Mojo host, Baba Singh.
When I was asked to write something about CKUA, my response to that was, “I can talk about CKUA, probably for hours, but writing, it requires a skill that I don’t think I have.”
So I’ll just “talk”….
Everybody has a personal story about the discovery of this hidden gem called CKUA Radio; here’s mine:
The year was probably 1983 and we were kind of outsiders in the broad cultural sense. Vegetarian hippies with young children, recently located to Alberta, isolated and trying to find our place in the order of things.
We had no TV (got to keep your kids away from the ‘bad influences’). Then we got a radio! Looking for anything listenable, we stumbled upon a program called Just Because We’re Kids (Saturday mornings, perfect!). CKUA becomes our radio home!
I have had a love for radio in my heart since, as long as I can remember. Radio is magic. As a child, I thought there were little beings inside of the ‘box’, and they were talking to me. And now here I am, one of those little people, having a conversation with you, the listener.
CKUA is our own magic land. Music! Story! Connection!
Music has more meaning when we relate to it on a meaningful level. That’s the Story—our relationship to it, and that relationship is the Connection—connection with something meaningful.
CKUA is an agency for that connection and it’s a lot more than a radio station. It’s a lifeline of a kind and it exists to serve its audience.
We are not just diverse; we are inclusive. We are not just trying to accommodate, we are home to you, to us. There’s no way for us to exist other than personifying and dispensing goodness.
Being real, being together, and (folk) rocking often!
CKUA is our home. We dance around the kitchen.
And, “We are in this together.”
Listen to Mid-Morning Mojo, Tuesdays to Fridays between 9 AM and noon MT on CKUA!
