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Veteran Vernon broadcaster named honourary fundraising chair

Betty Selin accepts invitation from Vernon Community Radio Society as campaign is set to start
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Veteran Vernon broadcaster Betty Selin has accepted an invitation from the Vernon Community Radio Society to be its honourary fundraising campaign chairperson. (Photo submitted)

The Vernon Community Radio Society (VCRS) has picked a familiar voice to be the honorary chair of its fundraising committee.

Betty Selin has agreed to the invitation from the society.

Selin was a longtime morning show co-host on then-Sun-FM’s Sunrise Show, who along with two other on-air personnel lost her job in 2020 when station owners changed the format to country music and rebranded as Pure Country FM.

“We are so proud to have Betty come on board to help us with this fundraising campaign,” said Gord Leighton, president of the VCRS. “We couldn’t ask for a better representative to help us introduce the benefits of this radio station to the Greater Vernon community.”

Selin is well known in Greater Vernon for her broadcasting career and community service, which began in Vernon in the late 1970s at CKAL-AM and continued until she left Bell Media in November of last year.

Selin is an award-winning journalist, with multiple awards from the Radio-Television News Directors Association of Canada. She received a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Electronic Journalists, only the third woman to receive the honour.

During her tenure as Regional News Director for Astral Radio’s 23 B.C. Interior licences, Selin and her team received more than two-dozen provincial and national news awards.

Selin was named Woman of the Year by Vernon Women in Business in 2005, and in 2013, she became the first woman outside of Ontario to be awarded the Rosalie Award honouring Canadian women in broadcasting who have blazed new trails.

“I was thrilled to be asked to help bring community radio to the North Okanagan,” said Selin. “I’m fortunate to have had an incredible career doing what I loved. Radio allows a connection with the community like no other medium. Valley FM will give residents a voice and I encourage you to contribute to this exciting opportunity for our region.”

The Vernon Community Radio Society is embarking on a fundraising campaign, with a target of $200,000 to launch a new community-based FM radio station to serve Greater Vernon. The society, incorporated as a not-for-profit society, received a seven-year licence for the new community station from the CRTC last September.

The station, which hopes to be on-air Oct. 1, announced last week that fellow veteran Vernon broadcaster Frank Martina had agreed in principle to do his Saturday Afternoon Classics show on Valley FM.

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roger@vernonmorningstar.com

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