Mauri Hesketh
Top: Mauri with Microphone circa
1955
Bottom: 2005 - Hesketh top row
center with his contempories
***
Mauri Hesketh
Born
1945 - a small bomb blew
up on the front lawn and he lost his left eye
1947 - built a radio
station in his basement to entertain himself - his father a painter thought he
was an odd boy.
1951 - Got married to
Lenora (Lenny)
1952 - CHWK Chilliwack -
got a job after canvassing stations in
1954 - CKOK Penticton for
more than a year
1956 - at age 25 he was
hired at CKNW New Westminster - news/DJ - then news full time
1975 – The Investigators
(NW)
1976 – left station with
20 year pension at age 45
1976 - CJJC news
1978-81 - CJOR news
director
1982 - hired by BCIT as a
journalism instructor
1985 – retired early at
the age of 55.
(Peter Munoz and Mauri
Hesketh, were instrumental in setting-up the original Broadcast Journalism
program at BCIT)
thanks to brother Paul
Hesketh for this fact based bio
***
Maurice (Mauri) Hesketh
was born in
Hesketh attended
Worked for a while at B.C.
Manufacturing (a cedar mill in
He married Lenora (Lenny)
before he started at CHWK. He worked for CKOK Penticton for a year plus.
Returned to the coast, and
tried desperately to convince CKNW to hire him. At the time, they had a policy
they would not hire anyone with less than 5 years experience. He prevailed and
they finally put him on the payroll.
***
Mauri Hesketh - CHWK
Chilliwack 1952, news CKNW New Westminster; news director CJJC Langley; news
director CJOR Vancouver; instructor and later program head Broadcast Journalism
British Columbia Institute of Technology; retired and living in Enderby BC.
Mauri Hesketh is the man!
By Laureen McMahon
Our secret is out!
The photo of the mystery CKNW
announcer reading from the pages of The B.C. Catholic in an advertisement from 1971
is of Mauri Hesketh, a newsman who joined the station in the late 1950’s when
it was located on Columbia Street in New Westminster.
We ran the ad in the July 10 issue
of The B.C. Catholic and asked our readers whether they could identify the man
at the mike. It seems our competition was a little too challenging, as nobody
correctly identified Hesketh. We’ll make the next contest less daunting.
When broadcasting began in 1944,
owner Bill Rea decided CKNW should reflect the heart of the local community,
and the next year the CKNW Orphans’ Fund, which still operates to help needy
children, was launched.
In keeping with the community-focused
mandate, Rea also insisted religious programming should be heard on Sunday
mornings.
Enter The B.C. Catholic editor,
Father Hank Bader.
Hesketh remembers it this way:
“My first recollection of The B.C.
Catholic newscast was of working the Saturday night news shift and being
surprised to see senior editor, Les White (whose real name was Henri Michaud),
walk in with a smiling gentleman wearing a clerical collar whom he introduced
as Father Bader.
“I got accustomed to them sitting at
a desk every Saturday night, pouring over pages that Les would edit and prepare
for delivery on the air Sunday morning.
“Father Bader was a delightful
person who always had a humorous story to relate. He and Les seemed to have a
special rapport that went beyond preparing the newscast.
“When Les left CKNW to return to the
family business in Dawson Creek, the job of handling the Catholic news fell to
me, but without the help of Father Bader.
“During the week, an envelope of
material would come through the mail slot, and it was up to me to select and
edit the material for Sunday morning’s 8 a.m. newscast. This was my regular
routine from about 1962 to 1975.
“I got a lot of kidding because I
was regarded as a Protestant, but actually my background is Catholic on my
father’s side, going back many generations.
“In addition, even though this was
something I didn’t want my friends to know, my second name is Francis, after
St. Francis of Assisi!”
Hesketh, who later taught Broadcast
Journalism at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, has retired with
his wife to Enderby, B.C.
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