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Diminutive radio veterans celebrate 200 shows

Two young Smithers radio DJ's hosted their 200th show.
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Ari (right) and Dorian (left) in the very beginning.

A pair of young Smithers radio DJs hosted their 200th show last week, and have made an impression along the way.

Ari and Dorian Rath Jenne have been the voice of CICK every Tuesday from 4 to 5 p.m., once a week for the last five years.

Ari was the first to get his chance to be on the airwaves when he was five years old. Now 10, he explains that shy boy who first started on the radio isn’t around anymore. His father, Perry Rath, agrees.

“Once Ari reached five, I introduced the idea to him and he was all for it,” he said.

Perry explained it started off with him doing most of the talking, asking Ari questions so he’d get used to talking in between songs. He said it didn’t take long for Ari to take over the show.

On Feb.14, Ari and Dorian hosted their 200th show. Both boys can’t believe it’s been 200 shows already.

“I feel like I just started a couple days ago. So I’m like, was it really that long,” said eight-year-old Dorian.

He tells the story of when he first started.

With laughter, he explained he started at three years old, but was too much of a troublemaker to become a consistent host.

“Well, I sort of started when I was three. But I wasn’t exactly invited all the time because I kept on annoying papa because I would tell him, you have to do cartoons. I mostly started when I was five,” said Dorian.

Perry explained he was always interested in radio and is happy to share it with his boys now.

“When I was in university, I had a show on the university radio show station in Ontario. I just really liked the atmosphere of what a community radio station was like. My friend Glen, he was the one who spearheaded the whole thing,” he said.

When Perry got the opportunity to do it in Smithers, he knew he wanted his boys to get involved as well.

Glen Ingram, station manager at CICK, loved the idea of the boys hosting a show.

“I was blown away. They are our youngest DJs, that’s a part of it, is the diversity of ages, too. To have someone who is young and interested in radio is really unique and I think it continues to be. What’s really unique about these guys is the staying power, five years old to almost 11 years old and they’re still here. That says a lot about them as individuals and them as people who are committed to an idea and get a joy out of it,” he said.

Their commitment to growing and learning happens every time they go on the air, Perry explains.

“I just do the tech stuff now. But over time he (Ari) has been learning the tech stuff too. So I don’t really have to do much on the soundboard anymore,” said Perry.

For the most part, Perry now takes care of working the computer to manage the music and lets the boys take over the show.

“Soon I’ll be stepping away completely, I’ll just be dropping them off at the door. It’s pretty neat, I didn’t know we would be doing it this long either. I thought we would start and see how it goes. They really liked it, they liked their identity being kid DJs in the community,” he said.

He explained the boys get stopped all the time in the community.

Ari told a story about showing a couple other kids what the inside of the radio station looked like.

“When they came in, they all said wow,” he said proudly.

When asked if they both wanted to do this when they get older, Dorian quickly agreed but Ari isn’t sure yet.

But for now, they both will continue to share their favourite music with their audience, and a few jokes too.