18 Facts About Earl McRae

Earl McRae was a Canadian journalist who wrote a daily general interest column for the Ottawa Sun.

Earl McRae was given his step-father's last name of McRae.

Earl McRae later worked at the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder and then the Peterborough Examiner as a general assignment reporter.

Earl McRae later worked at the Toronto Star, where he covered major news events such as the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing and The Beatles playing at Maple Leaf Gardens, the latter of which, he ambushed the "fab four" for an interview as they were leaving the back entrance of the King Edward Hotel in Toronto.

Earl McRae was a successful, albeit controversial, broadcaster in Toronto, hosting his own sports shows on CJCL, CILQ-FM and CBC TV.

Earl McRae remained at the station and a staple of sports journalism in Toronto.

On December 11,1989, Earl McRae demonstrated his controversial style in an editorial broadcast on "54 Rock," only five days after Mark Lepine's massacre of female students at Ecole Polytechnique.

In 1992, Earl McRae began working as a daily interest columnist at the new daily publication, the Ottawa Sun, where he would remain until his death.

Canadian Olympic figure skater Barbara Ann Scott was indebted to a column by Earl McRae for having her memorabilia displayed at Ottawa's city hall as well.

Earl McRae founded the Elvis Sighting Society in Ottawa in 1989, a non-profit registered charity that through its fund-raising events has currently raised upwards of $750,000 for various Ottawa-area charities.

Earl McRae won the gold at the Canadian National Magazine Awards for sports journalism three times, the top honour in its field, plus two silvers, and was nominated eight times.

Earl McRae won three Ontario Newspaper Association awards for his columns.

Earl McRae was runner-up finalist in 2006 for the National Newspaper Award in sports writing for his piece on former heavyweight boxer George Chuvalo.

Earl McRae won 10 column-writing Dunlop Awards for the Sun Media chain.

In 2010, Earl McRae was inducted into Algonquin College's Media And Design Hall Of Fame for lifetime achievement.

In 2002, Earl McRae was awarded the Friendship Medal, the highest civilian honour by the Royal Canadian Legion, for his articles on matters pertaining to the military, not the least of which was his column-writing campaign over several weeks that raised some $250,000 from the public to make it possible for a large group of Canadian veterans to return to Ortona, Italy in 1998 for a reunion ceremony.

In 2007, Earl McRae won the Canadian Consumers' Choice Man of the Year honour in a Leger Marketing poll of consumers in the Ottawa-Gatineau area.

Earl McRae had just returned from covering the funeral of a local cyclist who had been struck and killed by a motorist and McRae was set to write a lengthy feature piece on the tragedy.