NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 2025 26 RADIO JAMAICA 75TH ANNIVERSARY FEATURE | THE SUNDAY GLEANER | AUGUST 31, 2025 institution. It lls my heart when people reach out and thank me for being there for them and teaching them as it can be quite daunting if you don’t have a media background. I especially take pride in assisting new members of the department and imparting my knowledge to them. Some have moved on to other places and are now our clients. Thirty- ve years, a lifetime for some, but if I had to do it all over again, I would. SWEET MEMORIES In the early years, I always had Paradise Plum sweets, which were the favourite of my colleague, Cecile Wilson, and my boss, Milton Weller. I kept a stock of them to ‘sweeten’ our workdays. As the ‘sweetie’ bag grew, I became known as the “Sweetie Lady in Marketing”, and my co-worker’s children would visit me whenever they came to the office. I have watched some of those very children grow into ‘BIG people’ now, and it is moving that some still stay in touch. WITNESSING THE TRANSFORMATION We have come so far from mountains of paperwork and manually writing bookings to getting one PC for the department and taking turns to use it to now everyone with a PC or laptop, with everything now electronic and adapting to new software to get the work done. The days of running upstairs with tape, script, and indemnity form in hand to get a commercial passed progressed to CDs, thumb drives, and have now evolved to emails with everything attached …. no more running. We have grown so much, and this has been such a great opportunity for me to see and be part of all the changes. WONDERFUL PEOPLE I have been blessed to work alongside some wonderful people, some of whom have left or passed on, but my time spent with them was memorable and ful lling. They are all part of the tapestry of my years here. A few of the people I hold dear that have been and still are part of my journey – Norma Brown Bell, Derrick Wilks, Dorraine Samuels, Marjorie Wong, Beverley Brown Robb, Don Topping, Joan Harley-Smith, Pernell Parchment, Lester Spaulding, Rupert Hartley, Yvonne Wilks O’Grady, and I could go on, but I won’t, as [after] 35 years ... the list is long and I don’t want to leave off anyone. In a nutshell, I am now known as the “go-to person”, and it brings me much joy and satisfaction to serve my team, I love what I do, and I am honoured to be here to celebrate 75 years of Radio Jamaica! ‘Connecting Generations … Preserving Legacies.’ – Tanya Thurlow We have come so far from mountains of paperwork and manually writing bookings to getting one PC for the department and taking turns to use it to now everyone with a PC or laptop, with everything now electronic and adapting to new software to get the work done. The days of running upstairs with tape, script, and indemnity form in hand to get a commercial passed progressed to CDs, thumb drives, and have now evolved to emails with everything attached …. no more running.We have grown so much, and this has been such a great opportunity for me to see and be part of all the changes.
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