Tribute to broadcaster
I AM sad to announce my good friend and mentor Lee Sims has passed away.
Lee was a radio schoolteacher and broadcaster.
Lee started his career at 2LM Lismore and worked at 4KQ, 4BC, 4BH, 2CC and 2SM. He was the owner of 4VL Charleville and worked in promotions in TV.
In the late ’80s he started his successful Brisbane radio school in Spring Hill.
In the late ‘90s he was forced to close the school for a period of time having being diagnosed with leukaemia, which he beat. He then restarted his radio school briefly before heading back into commercial radio in Canberra and Sydney.
In recent years he worked as the secretary of the Cab Drivers Association as their spokesman and organiser and then at the Nundah Activity Centre as the promotions manager where he started an online radio station called Radio NAC, which was designed for the Men’s Shed organisation.
I first met Lee when he restarted the radio school and was operating out of the premises of the Ethnic Broadcaster 4EB.
He was the first real radio person I had met and I was amazed at his knowledge and voice.
We became great friends and this continued for the next 20 years as I travelled the country in radio.
He always picked up the phone for a chat and some advice, to which I will be forever grateful. I was devastated when he told me he had cancer and there was nothing the doctors could do.
We kept in touch over the months that followed and I remember asking how he was doing and he said that when he didn’t answer the phone then I would know.
Sadly that day came when he didn’t answer the phone.