Norris McLean Passes

[jon]

Norris McLean Seriously Ill

CKOK, CKWX, CKPG, CFRN AM & TV, CITV-TV - Norris McLean spent many years at each of them. Doctors are giving him only one to three months more to live. So, if you want to say anything to him, now would be the time. Although he cannot speak, he responds by squeezing your arm with his hand.

From the Edmonton Broadcasters Club:
June 21 - Norris McLean is in Room 4A2 at the University of Alberta Hospital. Although he cannot speak, he is able to receive visitors. He has a potentially fatal brain tumour that caused a stroke at the beginning of June, leaving him paralyzed on the left side and unable to speak. Cards can be mailed to: 74 Willow Way, Edmonton, Alberta T5T 1C8.

From EdmontonBroadcasters.com ("Broadcasters By Letter"):
Norris McLean - Announcer CKOK Penticton 1950-56; announcer CKWX Vancouver 1956-61; Production Manager CKPG Prince George 1961-63; announcer CFRN Edmonton 1963-64; announcer/weatherman CFRN-TV Edmonton 1964-79; new home Real Estate sales 1979; Account Executive CITV-TV Edmonton 1980-95; real estate agent and company owner 1995-current.

[Promotions Guy]

Does anyone have an update on Norris?

[jon]

A recent hospital visitor to see Norris was totally amazed at how much he had improved.

He is now able to speak and seems very cheerful and positive. He is now focused on the possibility of a complete recovery.

What excellent News!

More details from the Edmonton Broadcasters Club web site:

July 29 – Norris McLean is hoping to make a full recovery from a potentially-fatal brain tumour that caused a stroke at the beginning of June. He would appreciate visitors at the Edmonton General Hospital’s Palliative Care Unit, 9th Floor “Y”. Or cards can be mailed to: 74 Willow Way, Edmonton, Alberta T5T 1C8.

ref. - http://edmontonbroadcasters.com/ebc/

[TVNewsman]

Sad to report Norris passed away on Sunday, October 4th.

[jon]

A picture of Norris from a Edmonton Broadcasters Club meeting in the last year or so:



Thanks to Jim Tustian for this!

This picture goes back a few more years:

[jon]

Obituary is in this morning's Edmonton Journal. Funeral is on Friday morning.

Details are on the Edmonton Broadcasters Club home page:
http://edmontonbroadcasters.com/ebc/

[jon]

From Hicks on Six Oct. 7, 2009:

NORRIS SIGNS OFF

Readers with long memories will remember with fondness the now-departed Norris McLean, one of CFRN TV's lead announcers through the '60s and '70s.

Norris, who died recently, was up there with Bruce Hogle and Al McCann at CFRN in the golden days of Edmonton TV when CFRN battled it out with the CBC-TV's top dogs Alec Moir and Ernie Afaganis for TV news supremacy.

[jon]

Edmonton Journal – November 2, 2009

Beloved broadcaster best known for his warmth
By Cigdem Iltan
Life & Time, page A8

Even when a group of farmers cornered former CFRN announcer and weatherman Norris McLean at a wedding to interrogate him on his not always accurate forecasts, Mr. McLean’s trademark warm, ready smile never waned.

Norris Alexander McLean died on Oct. 4 after complications caused by a brain tumour. He was 76.

Mr. McLean first displayed interest in broadcasting as a high school student in Penticton, B.C., where he took elocution and voice production classes. He began his broadcasting career at CKOK radio in Penticton after he graduated.

Mr. McLean later worked as a top 40 DJ for CKWX in his birthplace of Vancouver, and eventually made the switch to television in Prince George. He moved to Edmonton in 1963 to work for CFRN, and stayed at the station until the early 1980s when he worked for ITV until his retirement in 1993.

Friends and family will best remember Mr. McLean for his kindness, consideration and acceptance for people from all walks of life, his wife Mary McLean said.

“If he saw you sitting alone at a party, he would go over and talk to you and say, ‘Maybe you could join us.’ He was very sensitive and very attuned to people,” she said.

Mr. McLean’s gentlemanly ways extended to his relationship with Mary, who said they had a “marriage made in heaven”: the couple had a total of one argument in their 47 years together.

“He was just a good person, I don’t know of any bad traits. He revered his family and it seems like a fairy tale story.

“All our friends all through life have said what a match we were,” she said.

Mr. McLean had a wealth of interests, ranging from food and wine to photography and flying. He read the newspaper from cover to cover every day and loved keeping up with current events and debating, said longtime friend Moira Sacks.

“He was somebody who enjoyed doing different things and was widely read and had a lot of knowledge in a lot of diverse areas,” Sacks said.

Mr. McLean injected passion into everything he did, she said.

“If you went out for a meal and if something was presented and it looked good, you knew he would express how he saw the presentation, and when he tasted it you would know from his expressive vocabulary and his face that this was good,” Sacks said.

Mr. McLean looked forward to attending special events wearing his national formal dress, and fondly referred to his kilt as his “skirt.” He chose the material for the kilt on a trip to Scotland with Mary, one of countless trips the couple took around the world, Mary said. They often took their son Barton out of school as a young child for a couple of weeks every year to travel, she said.

Edmonton audiences will remember Mr. McLean as an impressive-looking man at 6-foot-4-inches with a rich speaking voice, but his physical impression comes second to his warm and tender personality, Sacks said. “He was just a very congenial man, he was just very popular. It seemed everywhere he went they loved him,” Mary said.

ref. - http://edmontonbroadcasters.com/ebc/mem ... an-norris/

[YesterDaze]

Hey Jon.. thanks for posting this. I knew Norris at the outset of his career more than a half-century ago .. and while we didn't keep up, it's great to read such a positive report on "the rest of the story." I guess I missed out on quite a guy.