Leaving college, not journalism, says retiring professor

By Chad Hackl

Playing with puppies: Loyalist College broadcast journalism professor Len Arminio enjoying himself with Abby and Sterling's poodle playgroup in Peterborough. Arminio is set to retire from teaching after 28 years as a journalism professor at Loyalist College. Submitted photo.If there was ever a news story to break in the Quinte Region Len Arminio made sure his students were there.
For the past 28 years, Arminio taught Broadcast Journalism and more recently Journalism: Online, Print, and Broadcast at Loyalist College. In his final year as a journalism professor at Loyalist, Arminio is set to retire from teaching.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever leave journalism, but I’m certainly leaving the college,” he said. “Whether or not I plug back in or whatever, right now I’m just looking forward to the next page in the chapter of my life.”
Arminio played a vital role on the advisory committee at Loyalist to get the Broadcast Journalism program to the college in1981.
After over 40 years in media, Arminio, 62, said the more interesting people he talked to in his career weren’t the big time politicians or athletes.
“They’ve been the ordinary people on the street…trying to make a better life for themselves, and trying to contribute to society,” he said. “Those make great stories as well.”
Arminio was born in raised in Massachusetts and graduated from the College of Communications at Boston University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcasting and Film. It is fitting that at age 20; Arminio began his journalism career at his hometown paper in Massachusetts covering what he calls the “cops, fire, and court beat.”
“I liked covering some of the municipal meetings actually,” Arminio said. “Some really interesting things happened. I was at a city council meeting where two councillors actually got up and started duking it out,” he said holding back laughter.
Arminio moved to Peterborough in the spring of 1972 after a friend from university informed him of an opening at CHEX TV. It was there, where Arminio met his wife Jeanette. He worked for ten years at CHEX before being hired on at Loyalist in 1982. Colleagues from Loyalist say Arminio’s American pride is still visible, even north of the 49th parallel.
“He likes to bring his Massachusetts based beer Sam Adams to our Super Bowl party,” said Dan Nyznik, professor of sports journalism at Loyalist.
Arminio’s reporting days set the tone for his reputation as a journalism professor at the college. Andy Sparling, who has taught journalism at Loyalist for 23 years, said Arminio is the closest thing to a pure reporter in the school of Media Studies.
“We’re going to miss him terribly, and the reason I say that is he’s a fire truck chaser,” Sparling said. “He is enthusiastic about finding out what the heck happened when there’s a fire in town or a major crime has been committed. He’s all over and has been all his life, wanting to get that information out as accurately and as quickly as possible.”
Students can attest to Sparling’s analysis of Arminio. Paul Bradley, who graduated from the 2008-2009 Broadcast Journalism program said his biggest lesson from Arminio, was that everything should be considered a story.
“I remember specifically a story about a stolen ice cream cake from Dairy Queen,” Bradley said. “We all thought it was funny but didn’t think it was worthy of radio. Len was quick to ask why we didn’t run it.”
Bradley said Arminio taught him a lot during his time at Loyalist.
“He could be tough at times but we needed that so we could learn everything we needed to learn in two years,” Bradley said.
After all these years in the newsroom, Arminio said what graduates have gone on to do is what really makes him proud about teaching.
“I can literally go from coast to coast,” he said. I can go from St. John’s to Victoria and we’ve got a graduate working somewhere in almost every market in radio, television, or other related industries.”
Now that the teaching aspect of Arminio’s life is coming to an end, the retirement plans are in full swing. His busy work schedule has kept him from getting renovations finished.
“So many projects around the house, it’ll be years before I get them done,” he joked.
Arminio has been involved with the Peterborough Motorsports club for over 35 years. He did ice racing for nearly 20 years, but now helps organize events with the club.
Another major hobby of Arminio’s is Ham radio. He said his passion for Ham radio has gone hand in hand with his motorsports involvement.
“I participate in rallies as a radio patrol marshal or as a section commander for forest rallies and we use nothing but Ham radio,” he said. “So we have all of these Ham radio operators out in the woods that keep track as a safety measure and also control of the event.”
Arminio said he plans to start off his retirement with a trip to the East Coast this summer with Jeanette and his two standard poodles, Abby and Sterling.