The X Marks 30 Years of Memories

Fanshawe College's pioneering radio station, 106.9 CIXX-FM, marked 30 years of broadcasting on October 31, 2008, with celebrations in-house and on-air.

"We heard from a number of alumni from around the globe," said Bob Collins, Co-ordinator/Professor of the Journalism - Broadcast and Broadcasting - Radio programs at Fanshawe. The celebration, held in the Broadcast Centre of Fanshawe's School of Contemporary Media, included in-house and on-air visits from alumni as well as a radio show that took listeners back through the '70s, '80s, '90s and beyond.

The on-air celebration looking back over the years started at 2:30 p.m., the hour the station first went on air on October 31, 1978. "Each hour," Collins said, "we heard from some of the alumni from those eras and the music of those eras too."

Events at the Broadcast Centre also included the dedication of a production studio in memory of longtime radio professor Barry P. Sarazin, one of the pillars of the Broadcasting - Radio program.

The licence for CIXX-FM, as it was known in 1978, was the first instructional licence granted for any radio station in Canada. Today, the radio station, now known as The X, continues to thrive while training the industry's best and brightest.