Darrel Janz: at home – on air.

In Profile — By admin on September 4, 2010 4:14 pm

By Pat Fream

Photos by Neville Palmer

For many, he is the distinctive voice delivering the daily news over the dinner hour. For some, he’s a regular at the local barbershop. Others know him as the robust bass in High River’s Willow Creek Gospel Quartet. No matter how you know Darrel Janz, you feel like you know him; his voice brings you home.

I asked Darrel Janz to tell me something about himself that the world doesn’t know. Turns out, he has a surprising number of amusing tales. My favourite is the story of how he survived a helicopter crash while on a news chopper assignment covering the highly anticipated 1969 baseball event – Montreal Expos versus the St Louis Cardinals, in Jarry Park. Janz, still relatively new to the Montreal scene at the time, went up in the chopper with a rookie pilot whose inexperience with turbulence resulted in a nosedive into the ice laden St. Lawrence River.

“I broke a finger when I hit the instrument panel,” said Janz. “But what’s worse, I swallowed a whole lot of filthy St. Lawrence River water.” Janz, then working for Montreal’s CFCF news, said this was particularly disconcerting because the station had recently done a documentary on the alarming number of contaminants in the river.

However, as someone once said, you can’t keep a good man (or reporter) down. While the pilot went off on sick leave for a few weeks, Janz was back up in a replacement chopper before the afternoon rush. Soon after that, the station ordered Canada’s first Hughes 500 helicopter for their high-flying reporter. “It was really something! Just like the yellow one in the TV show Magnum PI,” he said beaming. “My reward for surviving the crash I guess!”

To this day, Janz is crazy for flying. “I’ll hop in just about anything that flies! I’ve gone up in gliders, home-built planes, hot air balloons, and at least a dozen different types of helicopters.”

Who would have guessed Darrel Janz, that steady, trusty, familiar face on the 6 p.m. daily news, is a self proclaimed adrenaline junkie? “I can’t help it, it’s my attention deficit disorder,” he confessed with a wry smile. “I have the attention span of a two-year-old.” In fact, a well-reputed time management coach once told Janz, “You just love it on the ragged edge of disaster.”

If thrill-seeking is his weakness, it doubles as a strength and has taken Janz on one heck of an incredible journey.

His story begins in the small Mennonite farming community of Main Centre, Saskatchewan. Growing up, he wanted desperately to be an athlete, but this was not in the cards for the youngest Janz son. “Sports were huge in our town, but I was a lousy athlete, I mean really bad – a total klutz.” A teacher who saw his love of sports directed Janz toward a career in sports casting, and that idea, coupled with his talent for writing and passion for world affairs, set Janz in motion.

“I had no idea how to get into broadcasting, but I knew I had to start somewhere, so I went to teachers’ college in Regina.” After a year of teaching grades one through seven in a small town north of Regina, 19-year-old Janz hit the road and didn’t stop until he found himself a radio job.

“The first station I worked at was in Altona, Manitoba,” said Janz. “The guy who hired me called me ‘A diamond in the rough’, he said you need polishing but you have a voice that, if properly developed, will make you a career.”

He called it right. The deep illustrious voice that says ‘Darrel Janz’ (even if you’re blindfolded) has proven to be quite the jewel, and since that first radio job in Altona, Janz has never had to apply for a job again. “It works like that in broadcasting, once you make a name for yourself, job offers come to you.”

After a year, Janz was back in Saskatchewan where he worked at CHAB, Moose Jaw, got his feet wet in television, and married his first wife. In 1965 he took a job at CFQC in Saskatoon and became the permanent 6 o’clock news anchor. By this time he had two children and a satisfying job, but Janz wanted more; his sites were set on Montreal, a city he had fallen in love with during Expo ’67.

In the fall of 1968, Janz was recruited by famous news director, Bert Cannings, and on two week’s notice he packed up his family and took a job as a back-up anchor at Montreal’s CFCF radio and TV (CTV). There he survived the crash in the St. Lawrence, and covered a tremendous number of exciting events, including the 1970 FLQ Crisis.

“The day Pierre Laporte’s body was found, I had just finished a 16-hour shift and had gone home to sleep when the phone rang and it was our news director,” said Janz. “He said they found the body and I need everybody here. So I took a shower and went back in and worked 25 hours, non-stop.” In that shift, Janz did the coverage for his own station, and he also did reports for ABC World News, CBS Radio, ABS Radio, and Radio Chicago. “That month I probably worked well over 100 hours of overtime,” said Janz. “I made money like I’ll never make again in my life.”

After four years in Montreal, Janz took a short assignment in London, Ontario, before being recruited to CFCN Calgary, in 1973. By the 1980s, his marriage had ended, but his teaching career had reignited. Throughout the next three decades, Janz taught broadcast journalism, first at SAIT, then at Mount Royal for a combined total of 26 years. In his other job, he became a dinner mainstay for thousands, as anchor of the 6 o’clock Calgary CTV news, alongside co-anchor, Barb Higgins, who joined him in 1989. Also the co-producer, Janz remains at CTV, but he had to give up teaching in 2003, when he accepted a job doing radio news for the Okotoks Eagle and Drum FM (Drumheller).

Today, Janz is remarried and has returned to his rural roots; proud to call High River home.

“I love High River. I’ve lived here for over 17 years now and I feel like this is my town,” he said fondly. “I love the fact that it’s right on the edge of farming country and I can drive through the beautiful countryside and see the cattle and horses on my way to work. You just can’t beat it!” Every fall Janz nurtures his love of farming by helping his friend with his fall harvest.

Asked if retirement is anywhere in his sites, Janz frowned for the first time in the interview. “I’m not a retiring type person – I’ll keep going as long as I have a voice.”

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The Gift of Giving

If you think his voice is a boomer, you should see his volunteer spirit. Darrel Janz has lent his time and energy to countless causes, including the Foothills Country Hospice, Cornerstone Homes (for Haiti orphanage – God’s Littlest Angels), Easter Seal Ball (for Camp Horizons) and a multitude of Calgary Foundations. Perhaps his greatest efforts have been poured out over two decades of volunteering for the Heart and Stroke Foundation, which gave back to him directly in 2005 when his wife, Marianne, survived a stroke. Marianne is battling a rare condition called arteriovenous malformations – a cluster of aneurisms at the stem of her brain. For Darrel and Marianne, every day is a gift.

Measure of a Man

In his bucket of achievements, Darrel Janz holds: a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Radio Television News Directors Association; a Heart of Calgary Award from Volunteer Calgary, and two honorary degree; Honorary Bachelor of Communications – Journalism from Mount Royal University, and Honorary Bachelor of Applied Technology from SAIT Polytechnic.

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Tags: CTV, Darrel Janz, Fire in the Belly, routes, Routes Magazine