Musings About MHR Canada: Excerpt #6

Last month my column ended with the words, “Now what?” We had just lost our consistently strong signal connection to the good conservative Christian programming of our beloved WMHR station in Syracuse.  This happened when Cogeco purchased the local Kingston cable services and removed the Mars Hill Broadcasting signal from their roster.  Shoohonkey! Please forgive me for the use of the word “shoohonkey” (pronounced shoe-honk-ee… it may not be quite like the biblically approved word, “ALAS” but I trust that it adequately expresses our feelings at such a great loss.) And so, now what? Well, Dr. and Mrs. Wyllie were not to be undone.

And so, the wheels continued to turn in 1982. After several Mars Hill Radio annual breakfasts in Kingston, organized by Dr. and Mrs. Wyllie and attended by over one hundred personally invited guests, Dr. Wyllie suggested the formation of a committee to start a charitable organization that could encourage Christian broadcasting in Canada. Even with the ban on Christian stations in Canada, he could visualize the construction of Christian radio stations, beaming the message of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from, and into, more Canadian communities. The committee could start with supporting WMHR in Syracuse and hopefully someday, be able to broadcast conservative evangelical ministry into Ontario’s largest city of Toronto. With the encouragement and fellowship of the Syracuse Board, and then Station Manager Gordon Bell, this desire took on form with the incorporation of Mars Hill Radio (Canada) on April 10, 1984.

What could this organization do? Come back to my blurb next month and find out!

Submitted by Hank Blok
Secretary-treasurer, Mars Hill Radio Canada