Former CFOS on-air personality Don Daynard has passed away.
“Don was probably, really, one of the foremost broadcasters in this country. There are people you think about at the CBC broadcasting coast-to-coast, [but] Don was on private radio, and commanded one of the most amazing audiences that I ever knew. One of the funniest people I ever knew, and one of the most respected people around,” says longtime CFOS host Dave Carr.
Daynard got his start in radio at CFOS in 1953 and would move on to broadcast jobs in TV and radio in Peterborough, Kitchener, and Smiths Falls.
He would then make a final move to Toronto, where he co-hosted the Morning Show with Erin Davis on CHFI from 1987 until his retirement in 1999.
And although he’d moved on in his career, he was well-remembered by local listeners.
“You get people like Don Daynard who, if I can say, ‘pass through’ Owen Sound on their way to the kind of stardom that he had, and they’re always remembered. Nobody who grew up at that time has ever forgotten that Don Daynard was here.”
Daynard and his wife Linda had also owned property in Oliphant for a long time, even after he’d moved on to other broadcasting gigs.
“Don came back for some of our significant anniversaries because the other thing about working in Owen Sound is that he loved Owen Sound. And if there was a 40th, 50th, 60th anniversary, he was happy to come back and be part of the celebrations, and share his memories with people, and they shared their memories with him — of him.”
Carr says that those who knew Daynard knew that he was in ill health for some time, before his passing on April 20th at the age of 89.
Daynard was also the voice of the radio announcer in the 1982 film Porky’s, and the news reporter in the Charles Bronson TV movie Act of Vengeance in 1986.
