Friday, March 29, 2024

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One man at CHCH for all 60 years

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As CHCH has been celebrating 60 years, there’s one person who works here who’s seen nearly all of it.

This week, director Nick Olchowy celebrates his 60th anniversary as a member of the CHCH family. Nick is someone who is truly ‘sixty years strong’.

The hallways have changed over the past 60 years, but one constant has been Nick Olchowy:  “The station always provided me with things to do, so I continue doing them.”

He was hired on November 15th, 1954 at the age of 22. He is the only employee featured in both company photo’s, nearly 60 years apart, standing in the same spot. Despite all of the technological changes over the years, he says TV is still the same: “There’s always that feeling of, hurry up and get it done type of thing, we’re late uh have to get it on the air.”

Nick has been a studio assistant and floor manager, but most of his time has been spent in the director’s chair. he’s seen a lot, including this story of when a light broke on set over Tom Cherington, starting a small fire: “I just told him, through his earpiece, to keep on reading. And of course he’s trying to put out the flames on the script, trying to read around the burnt holes in the script, and uh he just kept going on. Mind you after the newscast was over he was ready to strangle me.”

These days, Nick directs the Crime Stoppers segments that appear after the Saturday evening news, something he’s been doing since 1999. And work continued today where he was in a meeting to discuss production of this year’s midnight mass. It’s hard to find an area of CHCH that Nick has not been a part of.

Matt Hayes: “Here’s something that a lot of people don’t know. Nick Olchowy was my teacher at Mohawk College. Nick Olchowy taught me everything I know about television. He was a failure as a teacher.”

But that doesn’t stop nick from helping out today.

Elise Copps: “He always comments on my stories. He’s clearly watching what I’m doing and he has a lot of good feedback so it’s nice.”

Nick’s of course, generous with his time for all reporters here at CHCH and even recently because he sits so close he helped me for when I anchor weekends: “You kept mispronouncing it as I have heard others do saying YOU-crane instead of Ukraine. Incidentally, there’s another thing that you said wrong the other week, but I won’t tell you about it.”

So as the station and Nick celebrate 60 years, many of us marvel at his tenure

“(Any plans to retire?) “What’s that? I’ve never looked forward to retirement I just kept going.”

 

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