Veteran broadcaster launches autobiography
Doing a news story on a long time colleague–who is also a business competitor–is not an easy task. The story in question focuses on Rene Villanueva, the veteran broadcaster, who today launched his new book. I received my start in broadcasting under Rene at Radio Belize and because of that relationship, was too close to the story to do it justice. Likewise, News Director Stewart Krohn has known Rene professionally for thirty years and did not want his reporting to reflect a business relationship that has Belize’s growing number of media houses competing fiercely on a daily basis. That left the assignment to News Five’s Janelle Chanona, who finds the book to be part history, part memoir, and all passion.
Rene Villanueva Sr.
“Thank you for the acknowledgement and thanks, Thanks for Choosing love.” (applause)
Janelle Chanona, Reporting
Rene Villanueva is best known as a radio broadcaster, but today he officially joined the literary world with the launch of his autobiography: Thanks for Choosing Love.
Rene Villanueva Sr.
“It’s a unique experience, it’s a unique experience to sit down and write a book and I’d like to encourage any Belizean who thinks that he or she has something to contribute to Belize to do so, to document their lives because it’s an experience you never forget. You’ll never forget it.”
The book has been a work in progress for more than two years and after multiple revisions, was released to the public this morning. In just over three hundred and seventy pages, Villanueva chronicles his journey from a seventeen year old Spanish language announcer at Radio Belize to the first general manager of the Broadcasting Corporation of Belize. The paperback also details the drama that led to Villanueva’s termination from the B.C.B. and the birth of his own station, Love FM.
Rene Villanueva Sr.
“This is coming from me. This is me. I made sure that whatever I said in there, that I can substantiate. I did not do it in any way of anything but rather to just lay out the facts as I understand the facts and to bring my life out to the public because I think there was a lot of misconceptions about who I am, about Love FM, where it came from, who funded it and that sort of thing, so I thought that the record needed to be set straight. But I also thought too that there is no recorded history of radio broadcasting in our country, nobody has taken the time to document the history of radio broadcasting in our country, so I thought it was very important that I do so.”
Today’s ceremony was a launch like no other, complete with a video presentation, endorsements from the audience, book signing, and excerpts read aloud. While much of book focuses on Villanueva’s professional life, some of it is very personal.
Terry Gordon, LOVE FM Employee
[Reading excerpt from book]
“I made a deal with my mother.” Listen to the deal. “I told her that if it was God’s will that I stay in Belize, I would get a job. If I did not get one, then it was His will that I return to Honduras and I would accept it and become the best preacher ever.” We know that. “We prayed about it and she accepted the deal.” Poor woman.”
Julia Carillo Jones, LOVE FM Employee
“Government had decided to shut down the B.C.B. and turn the industry over to the private sector. On that last day of November 1998 at about twenty minutes before noon, Patrick Jones signed the station off and turned off the power button to the control board and I pulled the switch that took the B.C.B. transmitter off the air. When I pulled the switch that day, sixty-one years of government involvement in broadcasting ended. It was a day I had thought would never come.”
With his first publication now on sale, Villanueva is already thinking about future projects.
Rene Villanueva Sr.
“I want to republish my grandfather’s book of poems, and my mother has written her autobiography as well, so I might take time out and try and do that. With regards to my next book, I don’t know what it will be on. I am thinking maybe of looking more in detail of how the media is developing in Belize and maybe expand from just Love FM to maybe a broad overview how the media in Belize is performing and where it should be thinking of going to.”
“What more can I say except, Belize and beyond, thanks for choosing love.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Janelle Chanona.
Copies of Thanks for Choosing Love are available for forty dollars each at the station’s offices on Slaughterhouse Road in Belize City.
