Narrandera Argus
Pam lives on in spirit
3 min read

AT THE beginning of 2005, Narrandera Community Radio was looking for a secretary.

Pam took the job on until we could find someone to take on that role.

Our music library consisted of a couple of thousand tracks across several music types.

Pam took it upon herself to firstly reprocess every track to an even standard both in quality and audio volume.

The capacity of the playlist we were using was 5000 tracks.

Pam was adamant she was going to find many more than that and wanted the 100,000 version of the software to be purchased, and of course, she got what she wanted.

The music tracks were downloaded via the internet, CDs, Youtube and several other ways she found.

If a presenter wanted a track that wasn’t in the library, Pam would find it somewhere and process it into the library.

Each track had to be put through a series of processes before being suitable for the library.

This she would do at home every night with a laptop, headphones and portable hard drives while watching TV at the same time.

During the downloading, she developed a liking for country music and became a guru with the knowledge she gained.

Country music was her passion and she made it the big part of our station broadcasts.

It was only natural she became a presenter and played country music several times a week, and was able to talk at length about the various artists.

Conducting interviews both live in the studio or over the phone seemed easy for her and bragged about interviewing the cowgirls in Nashville, USA, and Mike Whitney in the studio.

The breakfast program is the busiest and an early start but Pam also did the morning shift for a couple of years.

Pam first became ill early in 2008 and suffered through extensive surgery, radiation and a long stint of chemotherapy.

None of this stopped her from continuing as a presenter and to build the station’s play list which now stands at 79,500 tracks – each one of those tracks put through the correct process before going into the library.

Our library is the envy of most radio stations including the commercial ones and she can be proud to achieve that huge task.

She never stopped working at the station even though it took a couple of years to get back to any sort of normal health.

Being the chairperson of the management board was another star to add to her already talents.

Unfortunately, her cancer came back in early 2014 and meant chemotherapy for the rest of her life but that didn’t deter her from finding and processing music tracks.

Interviewing the Mayor and general manager after each monthly council meeting was something she really enjoyed doing and she felt she was getting council activities out to the general population.

In 2017 Pam was awarded life membership which she accepted but felt others were more deserving, no one was more deserving.

Early in 2020 it was apparent her health was failing and couldn’t continue much longer but she continued with her programs as long as possible and still maintained the music library.

She believed the music library would be her legacy to her beloved town of Narrandera.

Pam didn’t fear dying but she did fear her music library wouldn’t be kept up to her standards.

Pam leaves a gaping hole in Spirit FM 91.1 however steps have been taken to train new volunteers in the workings of the music library to ensure her standards are maintained.

Learning how everything works is a slow process but it will become easier with time.

There is no doubt Pam will be missed not just at the station but by everyone whose life she has touched.