Radio announcer and presenter Francisco José Navarro has been awarded the Jameo de Oro Award for Traditional Culture awarded by the Cabildo of Lanzarote. Navarro's first microphone was that of Radio Lanzarote, where he began to build his career that has made him one of the most well-known and beloved faces of Lanzarote.
In an interview on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero, the presenter has stated that he is "very happy with the designation because it is something that you are not looking for, it is not a lottery number that you are buying to win, this is something that comes to you for collaborating with cultural groups".
"It has been a lifetime, more than 40 years, not only through the radio, but also in the presentations, the chronicles of La Voz", he continues.
It was Oswaldo Betancort who personally called him to communicate this award. "I appreciated that the president of the Cabildo called me personally and it was a short call where he congratulated me and encouraged me to continue with this battle that I have been fighting all my life," he reveals.
And Navarro has always given his hand to anyone who needed it. "I have been from Órzola to Playa Blanca, for everyone who has knocked on my door I have been there. There are groups with whom I have been for 40 years, presenting festivals, promoting Canarian music and I have also gone to Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura to present, but the award is appreciated," he says.
"I can say that the more than forty years that I was on the radio with an open microphone people were always affectionate and respectful, never with a rude word and if they see me on the street the same," says the announcer.
"Thanks always to the radio window, I will never forget this," he says emotionally. "It was something that started one afternoon by going to look for a prize of some French fries and a cola and I became known through that. I always liked the world of radio, but I didn't have the opportunity to study Journalism and I had that opportunity to enter with a music program on Radio Lanzarote. I entered at 22 and left at over 70," he declares.
"I remember that pioneering radio in which we couldn't even sit down because we had to run and run because today it's not like before, it was all manual and always with that responsibility because we complied with all the programming and it's fundamental in the radio," he concludes.
