Unflappable TV anchor Jim Allyn dies at 71
They can’t do it any more, but there once was a time when folks could smoke in the studios of CKCK-TV, as CTV Regina used to be known.
That’s how evening news anchor Jim Allyn came to casually flip a cigarette butt into a trash can.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed smoke, then flames, rising from the container as he was bringing the supper news to the people of southern Saskatchewan.
Absolutely unflappable, Allyn just kept reading until a commercial arrived and the flames could be extinguished.
Manfred Joehnck tells that story about his friend, who died recently at 71, to emphasize how cool he was.
Allyn (his real name was James Allyn Uhrich) “was so focused and he had so much professionalism and consistency” that few things fazed him.
When Allyn was on the air, “he was in ‘the zone’ — and did it with such credibility,” Joehnck said admiringly of his buddy.
Ironically, Allyn came to the broadcasting business without formal training. He’d been calling out the arrival of trains in westcentral Saskatchewan when somebody noted his deep, rich voice and suggested he try broadcasting.
He did — working for Rosetown’s CKKR Radio. In 1970, Frank Flegel, news director at CKCK Radio and TV back when they were under one corporate umbrella, heard him and thought, “Gee, this guy is pretty good.”
He hired Allyn for radio work, and later, the late-night news at CKCK-TV. Allyn eventually replaced the late Jim McLeod and found himself working with two other local broadcasting icons, weatherman-interviewer Johnny Sandison and sports anchor Dale Isaac.
With Global TV’s predecessor, STV, not on the air until 1987 and with CBC changing its local supper anchors almost every year, CKCK-TV had a huge share of the local TV viewership, which staffers like Allyn burnished by MC’ing community events.
Allyn was not one to let this go to his head, though. Joehnck says Allyn would go home, trade his suit for jeans and a plaid shirt “and take the piston out of a Honda.”
And when CKCK Radio and TV split in 1977, Allyn eventually did a split shift, reading the early morning news at CKRM Radio, leaving at 9 a.m. to nap, then appearing at CKCK-TV at 3 p.m. to prepare, then read, the evening news. Joehnck remembers once entering CKRM’s Halifax Street office around 4 a.m. to find Allyn sleeping in the control room. But once awakened, Allyn breezed through the morning and “sounded tremendous.”
Said Joehnck: “He had a great gift and he liked doing it.”
Allyn left CKCK-TV around 1995 and CKRM a few years later, returning home to his family farm in the Zealandia area to raise elk, among other things. When that market crashed in the face of Chronic Wasting Disease, he kept farming and also worked for the rural municipality.
He is survived by his wife and three children.