Pe­ter Ray Blood

Broad­cast­er Glen "Thun­der" An­toine, 57, died on Car­ni­val Tues­day morn­ing on his way to work at 107.7 FM, Wood­brook.A post by 96.1 WEFM on the sta­tion's Face­book page re­port­ed that An­toine was in his car at the cor­ner of White and War­ren Street, Wood­brook, when he start­ed feel­ing un­well.He called his nephew Rod­er­ick at 6.05 am and was found slouched over the steer­ing wheel of his car, cold-sweat­ing and suf­fer­ing from short­ness of breath.

An­toine was tak­en to the St James Med­ical Fa­cil­i­ty where ef­forts were made to sta­bilise him, as his blood sug­ar was high, but his blood count was low and the medics said he had suf­fered a stroke. He was trans­ferred to the In­ten­sive Care Unit of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal by 9.30 am, but a few hours lat­er, when his nephew re­turned to the hos­pi­tal, he was told An­toine had died.Tony Chow Lin On, own­er of 96.1 WEFM and 107.7 FM, said An­toine's pass­ing was a shock and mas­sive loss to lo­cal ra­dio.

He added, "He worked with us for the last 10 to 15 years, start­ing at 96.1 WEFM. Glen was a qui­et ri­ot. He was like a cat in the jun­gle just wait­ing for that mic to come on to pounce on the lis­ten­ers.

"As a teenag­er, fresh in the busi­ness, just af­ter the Ren­nie Bish­op/Bil­ly Re­ece era, it was re­al­ly Glen who in­spired me to get in­to broad­cast­ing. Glen had a sense of style. Through the years he brought that sense of pro­fes­sion­al­ism to the busi­ness. For Glen, it wasn't so much about be­ing heard on the ra­dio; it was re­al­ly about the art of ra­dio, his voice, and de­liv­ery. He was an ex­am­ple that oth­ers want­ed to fol­low."

An­toine start­ed on ra­dio (Ra­dio Trinidad 730 AM) with the late Sel­ma Ahy­ee as the op­er­a­tor on her week­ly af­ter­noon show On the Move. He sub­sti­tut­ed many times when Pro­jec­tion 3 an­chor Ren­nie Bish­op went on va­ca­tion, host­ing with Ed­di­son Carr and Ahy­ee. He did his own tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tions and some mix­ing on the turnta­bles, mak­ing him a valu­able as­set to the sta­tion. An­toine al­so host­ed the af­ter­noon seg­ment on 95FM's The Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en.

Dur­ing the late 1980s An­toine took a hia­tus from ra­dio but re­turned in the 90s and worked on a num­ber of the new fre­quen­cies that opened up, in­clud­ing 96.1 WEFM, 107.7 FM, and Star 94.7 FM.His col­league Ed­di­son Carr com­ment­ed, "Glen's death is trag­ic. He pos­sessed a very savvy voice. I have known him for over 30 years and one his qual­i­ties I eas­i­ly re­call was his out­spo­ken­ness. This didn't sit well with some man­age­ment, so Glen changed sta­tions of­ten.

"When he first came to town from La Brea I gave him some train­ing. Glen thought very high­ly of qual­i­ty broad­cast­ing, and was metic­u­lous about every as­pect of broad­cast­ing. He will be missed."For­mer ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty Ger­ald Agos­ti­ni said: "Glen was very good at what he did. He would def­i­nite­ly be missed in the ra­dio world."Fu­ner­al arrange­ments will be fi­nalised when An­toine's moth­er, An­nis An­toine, ar­rives from Boston, Unit­ed States, on Fri­day with his aunt.