Many careers nowadays don鈥檛 involve asking to be sent to the start of the Gulf War or to the taking down of the Berlin Wall but back then it鈥檚 what John Stall wanted to do. 

Back then John Stall wasn鈥檛 John Stall, he was John Stolarchuk.  

Growing up, John鈥檚 father was a salesman and would get a lot of calls at home for the business. He鈥檇 answer the phone 鈥楽tolarchuk鈥�, which he said 鈥渨as too clumsy and his company also felt that. He decided to change his last name to something smoother and easier, so it became Stall. When I attended Humber College taking public relations, part of the program was being live on the college radio,鈥� Stall said.

He hadn鈥檛 intended to be a radio person but in his free time he found he was spending more and more time at the radio station. As it turned out the instructor appointed Stall as the station general manager.

Stall is one of Canada's best known and respected radio broadcasters, who has travelled extensively to cover some of the most pivotal moments in history while hosting some of the highest rated radio interview shows in the country.

鈥淚 retired from daily radio, from the all news Toronto radio station 680 News in 2019 and moved to Ladysmith in the fall of 2019 before COVID," he said.

John had reported daily on local, national and international news stories as part of the Toronto radio scene for more than four decades, but now finds himself living in Diamond with his wife.

Stall is a multi award recipient including the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal for outstanding accomplishment and service to Canada in addition to the prestigious national ACTRA award as one of Canada's best Interviewers and investigative reporters. 

鈥淭hroughout my 45-year career, I鈥檝e interviewed thousands of news makers from all walks of life in addition to leaders of Canadian business, sports, entertainment and politics, including four prime ministers, numerous premiers and big city mayors,鈥� Stall said.

One of his coups was to get Wayne Gretzky and Rocket Richard together for a phone interview the day after Gretzky broke the Rocket's goal scoring record.

鈥淚鈥檓 like 19 years old. What that meant in addition to just spending a lot of time in the radio station was, I had no administrative role, it just meant that whenever industry people were being brought in to the college to speak to the class, and there were many, the leaders in radio, the leaders of public relations, executives it was my job to meet them. 

鈥淚 met them at the front door, introduced them to the class, spend some time with them after including a beer in the student pub and then thank them very much and away we went. Well, that gave me access to some people. In one case it was a general manager of a radio, a real radio station who over the chat after class when I was asking the questions and what I could expect once I graduated, he said there is a job opportunity in our radio station right now but has nothing to do with broadcasting, just technical, you could go on the control board and run the board for all the people that were going on the air. I said, I'll take it!鈥�

Stall produced Valerie Pringle鈥檚 radio show before she moved over to CBC television in 1984.

鈥淭hen it became my show. A one hour live radio. 'This is live with Stolarchuk' didn鈥檛 have a ring to it, so it became 'this is live with Stall' and it all started there,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he subject matter was anything and everything, and I picked it. I had an assistant, actually over time several of them, but one of them was David Onley. He had a polio disability, but he later went on to become lieutenant governor of Ontario.

鈥淒avid had written a book, he was interested in science. He wrote a book called Shuttle which was based on the explosion of the first shuttle. I was interviewing him on his book and at the end of it he said, man, would I like to work with you, you guys, you got the best job in the world, so I was said, I mean, I was looking for a producer, so I said come on in.

鈥淭he shows could be four interviews, or even three or sometime five, in an hour, but it would also be a little bit of as it happens,鈥� Stall said. 鈥淚f there was a terrorist attack on a plane, I would be like I've got a good story about that, but I I would try to find the pilot of the plane once they landed. Not a week later, immediately, that night, seven o'clock lead story. There was a political development, either a big announcement or House of Commons or whatever, it would just be as it happened as quickly as possible. It was a Stanley Cup, and I try to get the score. That would be the opening segment of the show, the news of the day.

"The back end was always preplanned, authors coming through, it all came to Toronto. Any book that was ever written by any American, any Brit, any Australian, any bestseller, any New York Times bestseller, in town on a publicity tour they all got booked on my show.鈥�

It is the job of the host to know the history of the person, know their stand or have read the book, knowing the subject matter of the subject that the radio was going to feature.

鈥淚n the mid '80s the trend started where the anchors, mostly television in the United States, the anchors of the big CBS, NBC newscasts started going out into the field to do their reports. Before that, they were always in the studio and they had reporters all around the world. So it moved into big radio," he said. "They had a budget, it was spending money. This is not the days of today where they're cutting pencils and everything else, OK? So I started to do that and I had all kinds of freedom. I would just say to the management, big hurricane coming into Carolinas, I鈥檇 better get there and see what it's like. A guy from a Canadian radio station, you were travelling all the way to South Carolina and stand in the middle of a hurricane!

鈥淚t was November 1989 and the real buzz was about Russia, Gorbachev, Reagan and this Berlin Wall. I said to the station management 鈥� I gotta be there this wall may come down! I mean, there was a march that was happening in the middle of Berlin that was starting to grow. People were gathering, gathering and marching towards East Berlin. Nobody knew what was gonna happen when the masses got there. So I got to Berlin and witnessed the falling of the wall. Really!  I was there from two days before, to the night it falls to the day after. I try to cross into East Germany, get stopped by the East German guards and interrogated, because I'm now across the east as everybody's coming out of the east to go to the west. I'm doing the opposite, which is the story of my life as a reporter. I go in when everybody's coming out. Danger, they're leaving the danger I'm going into the danger. That's the only way you got eyes on.鈥�

鈥淪o, after the wall came down, which I witnessed, I'm standing beside all of the NBC television guys, I'm on radio. No cell phones! We're talking into our mics onto cassette and then scramble to find a way to get the tape back to Canada. There was a crew from the German national broadcasting, and they let me broadcast live to Toronto, using their equipment. I'm on the leading edge of public affairs. Worldwide.鈥� 

The Berlin Wall wasn鈥檛 the only time Stall would be on the cutting edge of world news. He also insisted on heading to Kuwait on the eve of the Gulf War in 1990.

鈥淚 did spend some days in bomb shelters while I was there, but we got the news,鈥� Stall said.

鈥淭he prime ministers, I interviewed them all because, again, my show was a bit of a clearing house for a public opinion. So most of them came in, to me, into the studio, Stephen Harper, Kim Campbell, um Chr茅tien. 台湾MM裸聊室 no, I've interviewed Justin 台湾MM裸聊室 but was on the phone. I didn't do senior. Paul Martin on the phone, I knew him, interviewed him several times.

"The premiers, I'm mostly Ontario. The names may not make any sense for anybody out here. David Peterson and Bob Ray. I liked him.

鈥淚 said to you earlier that me meeting these people was a great education for me. In many cases, I met and interviewed these leaders before they became prime minister or premier, while they were prime minister and premier and then after they were prime minister or premier. So I've got a good view of before, during and after,鈥� he added.

鈥淚'm just saying from my experience, which is probably more than most, I don't know any one of them that I met, that I think was in it for the wrong reason. They were doing the right thing鈥�what they thought was the right thing.鈥�

He said the political leaders he met felt the responsiblity of having to make decisions that affected many people.

"So I have the highest regard for politics. for political leads,鈥� he said, but added, 鈥淭rump is a nut bar.鈥�

He said he went to college but didn't get a degree. The interviews he did with so many experts in a wide variety of fields, however, was a great education, as he had to learn enough about the subject matter to keep up.

鈥淪o my my goal as an interviewer was always to know not quite as much as the guest who's the authority....I can assume that 20 per cent of all of those listening could know more about the subject matter than I do. But I would know 80 per cent more than 80 per cent of the audience because I studied for it. I might forget it by the end of the week but at least at that moment I knew it in order to interact with these people.鈥�

As well as politicians Stall had interviews with sports celebrities, actors, authors and overall newsmakers including the likes of Ken Taylor who was the Canadian Ambassador to Iran, in 1979 who hid six Americans in his home and helped to orchestrate their escape from Iran.

Through it all, family has been important to the Stalls. The Stalls' daughter moved out to Ladysmith with her husband almost ten years ago and after a couple of years they had a daughter. 

"My wife, Marlene, said she wasn鈥檛 going to go through life not knowing her grandchildren, so here we are," Stall said. "Ironically our daughter and her family have moved back to Toronto, but we have found that Ladysmith is really home and this is where we鈥檙e going to be here. We can go back as often as we like and we did have some really great 'grand baby cuteness' years."