Stan Bailly remembered for his kindness, living life to the fullest

“Obviously his personality. Stan being ‘Stan.’ He was this incredibly loveable guy whose laughter was infectious,” B-100 and CIFM Program Director Cheryl Blackwell said. “Not only was he waking people up every morning, but he was also DJ’ing their weddings. He was DJ’ing their graduations. He was so much a part of their lives and their memories of these big moments.”

Many woke up Saturday to the news of Bailly’s passing. Since the summer, Bailly had been fighting COVID-19 in ICU. He was double vaccinated but being immunocompromised after receiving a kidney transplant years ago, Bailly was cautious.

Unfortunately, he lost that battle, but leaves an incredible legacy behind.

The station’s former GM Rick Arnish remembers bringing Bailly back to Kamloops to host the CIFM morning show — a showed called “The Twins” with Doug Collins. One day, Stan agreed to do his show from the top of Mt. Paul.

“Stan was always up for doing stunts and we needed to have something big to kick off [CIFM],” Arnish said. “In the early years of the station, we put him in a helicopter. We flew him up to Mt. Paul and he did the morning show from the top of Mt. Paul. That’s the type of person he was. He was very open to challenges and doing things right for the station and for the community.”

Tributes have been pouring in on social media with many appreciating his voice on the radio but also his ability to get a party going as a DJ.

The loving memories are no surprise to his close former colleagues like Earl Seitz, who read the sports on “Stan & Hank In The Morning” for years.

“I remember Stan as being somebody who was very friendly. He was very compassionate. I never heard him say a bad word about anybody, and I never heard anybody say a bad word about Stan,” Seitz said. “I think the outpouring of love and affection that you’ve seen on social media over the last few days really says what kind of a person Stan was.”

Stan’s long-time radio co-host, Henry Small, said he’s too devastated to talk about his best friend. In tributes made about Bailly when he retired in 2018, Hank said the two just clicked right from the beginning.

“It was just an instant kind of thing. There was just a rapport between us. We both had completely different lives, but kind of had the same attitudes towards life,” said Small in the 2018 interview. “He had gone through some stuff, I had gone through some stuff, and we found radio together.”

Bailly, who started in radio in 1968 in Williams Lake, returned to Kamloops in 1987 and stayed on the airwaves in the city for good. It was all a dream come true.

“I worked hard at it. A lot of failure at first. A lot of getting laid off or fired. Finally, we (Stan & Hank) struck gold. I found Henry and the rest is history. Turned out pretty good,” Bailly said in 2018.

by Chad Klassen

Stan Bailly remembered for his kindness, living life to the fullest

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