Following CFCA-FM's Fred Merritt's passing in August, the 864 King Street West gang in Kitchener has been hit by another 4 more retired employees who have gone to that big TV Studio in the sky. After Fred on August 24th, Willa McLean passed away on September 4th.....Willa was the wife of deceased Radio and Television personality Bob McLean. She co-produced "McLean and Company" on CKCO-TV. On September 14th, Su McKillop passed away. Su had been the Television Traffic Supervisor for a number of years before moving on to work at CTV in Toronto. We were all shocked to hear of the sudden ailment and death of Production Editor Joe Ulmer at just 70 years of age. There were few edited shows that came out of the Production Edit Suite that Joe did not play some part in editing. Just two days ago CKCO-TV News lost one of it's finest - Gary McLaren. (Webpage is being worked on with many pictures and videos to add on). Gary did it all over the years. In the 1950's he worked the newsroom, co-hosted a show called Gadabout, and was the host of Canadian Bandstand after Wally Crouter - Wally quit because it was interfering with his golf game. Besides reporting, Gary would go on to be the Assignment Editor, New Director and then the host of a very popular morning program - Sunday AM. Gary was 92 years old at the time of his passing.

This now makes 11 former employees of 864 King Street West in Kitchener who have died in 2025.....and there's still 3 months left.

Last edited by scrand (September 25, 2025 3:11 pm)