by Edith Cody-Rice
Today we pay tribute to Diana Filer, our quiz master since the launch of the Millstone who on this date in 2012 published her first quiz. She has diligently provided a quiz every Saturday in the Millstone for the past 10 years. Her knowledge is encyclopedic and eclectic.
Upon graduating in French and philology from UBC, Diana did graduate work at the Sorbonne and the Institute Britannique in Paris.
Diana’s broadcasting career began in 1961 with the CBC in Vancouver as a program assistant, She rose to Executive Producer in radio then transferred to television. A great accomplishment in radio was her creation in 1975 of a Science program which the CBC had never considered airing before. Quirks and Quarks is still on air after 45 years. In television, Diana spent two and a half years producing a nightly local current affairs show for the news program “24 Hours” before returning to radio as Head of Variety. In 1983 Diana was named Director of CBC London, a posting she held for 3 years before returning to Canada to become the Corporation’s Director of International Relations. She retired to her home in Vancouver. Diana has said that her high school and university Latin courses were the best basics she could have ever had for a career in journalism. Her priorities now are family, friends and health.
I met Diana at the CBC where I was a lawyer and she the Director of International Relations. She was widely acknowledged to be one of the smartest people there and her wide ranging interests and knowledge made her the perfect person to approach about setting quizzes in the early days of the Millstone.
So to Diana we say thank you for your imagination, your research and your diligence. We owe you much.
