Image Credit: Facebook
August 23, 2013 - 9:02 AM
KELOWNA - One of the Okanagan's most recognizable and enduring voices was silenced yesterday when radio newsman Kim Calloway died of cancer. He was 69.
News of his death spread through social media yesterday and was met with shock and sadness. Calloway only left his last post as anchor at Q103 on August 12 due to health reasons, ending a 50-year career in radio.
On Aug. 17, he announced his engagement to Arlene McLelland.
Q103 colleague Jasmin Doobay says she was with Calloway and McLelland near the end. She said on Facebook that Calloway was diagnosed with lung cancer that spread to his liver.
He died just five days after he was admitted to hospital.
While Calloway's passions for music and vintage cars were less well know, his broadcasting career was the envy of many. He worked at CHUM radio in Toronto starting in 1963 and covered the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations on location. He interviewed Neil Young, Frank Zappa and Peter Townshend in their primes. But his favourite interview was with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their bed — in 1969.
His career took him across the country to Vancouver, Vancouver Island and Kelowna, among others. He was credited with a Webster award along with the news team at CKOV for their coverage of the Okanagan Mountain Park fire in 2003.
Services have not yet been arranged.
To contact the reporter for this story, email Julie Whittet at jwhittet@infotelnews.ca or call (250)718-0428.
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