2SSR 99.7 FM community radio presenter Joyce McKenzie has signed off after 28 years of broadcasting with some words of advice from her signature song for her many listeners: “Don’t worry, be happy.”
One of the founding broadcasters of 2SSR, Joyce has also been one of the stations most popular broadcasters over the past 28 years.
Back in 1989, after she retired as a private secretary and moved from the Eastern Suburbs to Sylvania Waters with husband Brian,Joyce saw an advertisement in the Leader calling for community radio broadcasters.
She answered the advertisement and met Keith Clark who was starting a new community radio station which was to become 2SSR.
“I have always loved music and played the banjo-mandolin and sang when I was a girl,” she said. “I played in a band for the soldiers in a band in Hyde Park in World War II and have never lost my love of music.
“I answered the advertisement and asked Keith if I could join the station and he said, why not.
“When I learnt the job I thought I had won the lottery.”
Before 2SSR got its licence, Joyce and the other presenters broadcast from a caravan, visiting various school fetes around the shire.
“We got our licence and when I started my show there was a popular song by Bobby McFerrin called Don’t Worry, Be Happy. I thought what a nice song - that’s my theme,” she said.
Joyce presented her three-hour show from 9am to 12noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, scaling back to Tuesdays in recent times.
“The first hour was was music from the 1950s, the second hour was music of stage and screen and the third hour was jokes and the latest in modern music,” she said.
Joyce believes that community radio brings people together.
“I feel I have made a lot of friends through the radio. I’ve had a lot of listeners,” she said.
2SSR administration manager Felicity Milnes said that Joyce has been one of the station’s popular presenters.
“She gets more calls than anyone else from listeners who ring up thanking her for her music and her jokes,” Felicity said.
But there has been one particular person she always hoped to impress with her broadcasting.
“I was an only child and I lost both my parents within a year while I was aged in my 20s. My mother used to say I was a lazy speaker,” Joyce said.
“So I practiced my enunciation and now after every broadcast I look up and say, ‘Well Mum, do you still think I’m a lazy speaker?’”
Joyce has also taught many other presenters.
She said there are several rules to being a good presenter.
“Please, no dead air (silence) when you are broadcasting. One song has to follow the other without a break. You also have to watch what you are doing because things can happen very quickly on air. Be alert. During a broadcast you have to handle two computers, the panel, and two CD players, so you have to be alert.
“And you have got to love music.”
Joyce’s love of radio has not dimmed over the years and she hopes to return occasionally as a guest presenter.
“If I could have done this years ago and got paid for it I would have enjoyed it so much,” she said.
“It’s a wonderful hobby. It could have been a wonderful career. I love it so much.”
