Pete McGarvey Interviews Unknown Man for CFOR, Orillia
Photograph belongs to OMAH’s McGarvey Collection.
Information sourced from broadcasting-history.com
Born June 29, 1927 in Toronto, James A. “Pete” McGarvey had a career in Ontario radio spanning more than fifty years. Beginning as a radio script writer for Canadian High News shortly after completing high school in June 1946, McGarvey moved to CFOR, Orillia in 1947 and stayed for eighteen years, advancing from copy-writer to assistant general manager in a station that launched the careers of many well known personalities. Gordon Lightfoot was a familiar figure around the CFOR studio in the McGarvey years. Radio journalist Tayler “Hap” Parnaby; NHL Hall of Fame sportscaster Ken “Jiggs” McDonald; stage and screen actor Shane Rimmer, and Richard Wright, winner of the 2001 Governor General’s Prize for Fiction and the coveted Giller Prize, were all CFOR alumni.
In addition to his management and on-air duties at the radio station, Pete played a leading part in community life, serving for 11 years on municipal councils, as alderman, reeve and deputy-reeve. In his mid twenties he led a four year campaign to secure and restore “The Old Brewery Bay,” the summer estate of Canada’s celebrated humorist, Stephen Leacock. For his efforts to save this historic residence, he was chosen as Orillia’s Citizen of the Year in 1957, and was named Director Emeritus of the Leacock Museum in 1999.
In 1961, with Ruth and Casey Jones, he co-founded The Mariposa Folk Festival. During the 2005 Festival in Orillia, he became one of the first inductees into the Mariposa Hall of Fame.