11th Feburary 2010
Left in the dark, but saved by the light…
(or, What a little Voice article can cause)

Last week, I penned a little piece on Radio Caribbean sparked by an item on HTS’ ‘Historical Footnote’ on February 1, 2010.
I got lots of feedback. I met my friend (and colleague) Timothy Poleon and he told me he’d read the piece on his News Spin program. Later, other persons told me Tim said on the program after reading the Voice piece that I had three factual errors – including that he worked “as an announcer” and not “in the newsroom” at RSL as I claimed. (Sorry, Tim.) But he said he would not bother to correct me.
Tim left me in my ignorance. But not someone else, who felt that in what she thought was my “deification” of Rodinald DeCoteau, I had “left out” or “forgotten” many other persons “who did just as good, or maybe even better” than the star of my piece. (Poor Roddy!)
Nor was I left in ignorance by yet another person who, evidently, knows the RCI story much better than I do, and asked me, “So what about your friend Jerry George?”
In truth and in fact, I did not mean to forget Jerry -- or anyone else, for that matter -- but what this mutual friend of Jerry and me informed me about Jerry’s role in RCI’s history should make the people at Monroe College glad, even proud, of having him on board.
As my friend sees it, “Jerry is integrally imbedded in RCI’s history. But because he’s no longer on air and has never been on air in many of the programs he produced, his role, like all producers and background persons, is very unknown.”
Here’s what more I learned about the station and the man – as a result of my little piece in last week’s Voice.
The station will be 49 years this year – on February 22nd, the same day as St. Lucia’s Independence anniversary.
The original owners of the station were the Lejeunne’s. (Madame Lejeunne taught languages at SJC) and programs were in French, Portuguese, Spanish and “a little English.”
Back in those days, Radio Caribbean was what my friend described as “a magnet for visits by school children, who were fascinated by seeing the people they were hearing in the radio box.” In a way, my friend said, “it was the precursor to Vaughn Noel’s STOP (St. Lucia Talent On Parade) as it exposed the talent of students who performed as part of their visit.
Before going all English (on February 1st,1974, which I wrote about), Radio Caribbean tried what my informant describes as “a double-barrel broadcast of French-English in the morning and afternoon.”
I also learned that “By the time the station went all English, Emelda Charles had faded as an announcer and it was Arlette Auguste (now deceased) who was the star, together with Vic Fadlin (also deceased).
(Fadlin also entered the World DJ Contest organized by Rediffusion with the likes of Don Toppin of Jamaica, who won). But that was also seen by many (at least today) as the turning point of radio in St. Lucia for the now “shouter” style DJs.)
My informant: “Emelda Charles had moved to the newsroom after her return from CARIMAC. Margaret Robert Steele did the mid morning. And Emelda leaving RCI for Jamaica opened the door for a full time position for Jerry George in the newsroom.”