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"The teachers I’ve had have encouraged me at every turn. I owe my success and learning to them all.”
Best known for her big laugh and her uncanny ability to connect with people from all walks of life, Shelagh Rogers has had an enviable six years as the host of CBC Radio’s morning show Sounds Like Canada. So when she announced this March that she would be leaving the network’s flagship morning show at the end of May, many of her fans were shocked. (Since then CBC Radio has announced that the show would run its course at the end of August.)
Yet, Rogers’ career has never been predictable. Rather than race to fame in a single genre, her path has had its share of twists and turns with her hosting nearly a dozen different programs over her 28 years at the national broadcaster. In those years, she has come to appreciate the benefits of having diversified interests: She began her career reading weather reports and has since landed assignments in jazz, classical music, the arts, literature, film, and current affairs.
“Right from my earliest days in high school I’ve been interested in so many things,” says the 51-year-old from Vancouver. “The teachers I’ve had have encouraged me at every turn. I owe my success and learning to them all.”
Born and raised in Ottawa, Rogers’ eyes were opened early to the benefits of progressive teaching when she joined the enriched program at Lisgar Collegiate Institute. To this day, she can still name every instructor she had in the school.
“I had learned in public school that if you put up your hand to ask a question, it showed you were stupid. But it was exactly the opposite at Lisgar. We were encouraged to let our imaginations range widely.”
Students pursued projects off campus, often taking weeks at a time to study and research. Looking back, Rogers is certain that the school’s unique approach informed her future broadcasting style; she learned that the best research is always done first-hand.
“I got put into the accelerated program, which meant we had a great deal of freedom. And, this is no false modesty, I don’t know how I got into that class. I had been to my guidance counselor at Glashan Public School, her name was Miss Bowen—gosh, I remember that!—and I told her I wanted to go to Lisgar to be with my best friend. They tested me and I guess I must have had the aptitude.”
Such remarks are classic Shelagh Rogers: smart, humble and engaging. She speaks with equal enthusiasm about her school career, her many mentors and her family. All have contributed immeasurably to her learning. On her decision to attend Queen’s University she says “It was the dying wish of my late grandmother, who I was very close to and who taught me so much.”
Rogers doesn’t remember ever seeing her grandmother without a book in her hand—whether it was something by British intellectual C.P. Snow or other great thinkers of the time. So, if her grandmother believed that Queen’s could impart some value, then she was willing to give it a try.
At Queen’s, Rogers studied art history and met professors who challenged her in much the same manner—albeit more rigorously—as the faculty of Lisgar Collegiate.
“They were open thinkers, progressive people, which suited my learning style,” she says. She went on to study Italian in Venice, and even composed her own works on a Moog synthesizer as part of a music class. She was encouraged to volunteer at the campus art gallery, where she immersed herself in art conservation, which she intended to pursue until radio intervened.
Rogers’ broadcast career came about in what-would-become her trademark fashion: happenstance. One Sunday afternoon as she listened to a classical music show on the Queen’s University radio station, she heard a woman reading record notes verbatim from the album covers.
“I thought, ‘Surely, you’ve got to do more than this?’ If you’re on radio you have to add something more.” So, she knocked on the station door and expressed her desire to give broadcasting a whirl. Within three weeks she was programming the station’s classical music. “I discovered I really loved broadcasting, and had a huge appetite for it.”
Part of her success emanated from excellent classical music instruction during high school. A favorite teacher had run the string music program and put together an orchestra from what Rogers refers to as a “motley crew.”
In 1980, after a stint with private radio in Kingston, Rogers joined CBC Radio in Ottawa. The youngest CBC staff announcer ever, she quickly became the host of a current affairs program and several musical broadcasts. Two years later, she assumed hosting duties on a national daily music program (Mostly Music) and won the first of many awards, an ACTRA for Best Host/Interviewer.
In 1984, she moved to Toronto where she fielded local programming and contributed to legendary CBC Radio shows such as Peter Gzowski’s Morningside and Arthur Black’s Basic Black.
“I can’t say that I directed my career moves, because I just sort of swung back and forth between current affairs and music wanting to work with people who could teach me something. There was no grand scheme.”
She counts the gruff, long-time host of Morningside as her chief mentor.
“If I’m a good listener now it’s because I paid attention to the things Peter did,” She explains. “Peter didn’t say to me, ‘This how you do it.’ Instead I learned by example. I’m rarely face-to-face with the person I’m interviewing so it’s critical to understand what is happening when that person says ‘hmmm’ or ‘ahaaa’ or when that person makes a sharp intake of breath. What does it mean? What do they need to say? I learned all that by watching him.”
Before he died in 1997, Gzowski was a tireless advocate for literacy, a cause that Rogers has continued to support as a volunteer: She has worked with Frontier College, Canada’s largest literacy network, for nearly two decades. She also hosts an annual bonspiel for literacy that has raised more than a quarter-of-a-million dollars, along with other literacy efforts across Canada.
“As part of my inheritance from Peter Gzowski, I host golf tournaments in his name up north. And I understand now why he had such a passion for those vast and barren lands; since I took up his cause, I feel as though I’ve been completed as a North American.”
Rogers also learned from Gzowski’s example that radio broadcasters are involved every minute in lifelong learning. “I should be one of the smartest people in the country, except that I don’t have a good enough long-term memory,” she laughs.
Surrounded by bright, energetic researchers and producers, Rogers says that in many ways she feels as though she’s never left university. “And I’m happy about that.”