Penticton radio personality leaving the city for new opportunity

PENTICTON – A radio personality very familiar to Penticton and residents of the South Okanagan-Similkameen is leaving the city for a new job in the Kootenays.

SO Country Internet Radio host Dennis Walker announced yesterday, Aug. 31, he would be taking the morning show host’s position for the new Clear Sky Broadcasting radio station, to be launched soon in Cranbrook.

Walker plans to continue SO Country Radio broadcasts, producing weekend and weekday features from his new location. The SO Country Internet Radio team plans to continue broadcasting operations out of the Adidas Sportsplex with regular co-hosts producing shows of their own.

Walker has been a familiar figure for years in Penticton, covering news and spreading the word about his radio show by having interviewees photographed holding the familiar SO Country radio banner.

He won the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award for community support in 2013, and last year won the BCFGA-BC Fruit Growers media award for professional reporting of the tree fruit industry. Okanagan Life magazine noted Walker in the magazine’s '2014 Best of' feature. SO Country also placed in the top five in the Premier’s Choice category at the 2014 B.C. Small Business Awards.

Walker’s community service has also been recognized through the awarding of a Queen’s Diamond Jubiliee Medal for community service.

Walker says he’s been in Penticton just one month shy of 25 years, and he doesn't plan to sell his house as a result of his new position.

“I have my heart with SO Country and Penticton,” he says.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Steve Arstad at sarstad@infonews.ca or call 250-488-3065. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.