Rest In Peace Margo Lane 1953-2026
Margo Lane beloved CKUT weather girl and radio programmer of the show Adventures in Music died Friday Sept. 04 2026 from complications from colon cancer.
Margo was a central part of CKUT’s sound and spirit both on and off air. She began at the station prior to its going FM in 1987 and continued to be a presence at the studios up until the Covid pandemic. Margo loved plants and records and magic, coffee and drawing pictures, and most of all people.
Margo would usually sit right at the top of the stairs into the CKUT common area and greet those who came to the station. A never ending stream of people from all walks of life would be greeted by her and offered coffee.
Margo was fiercely independent right up until her death. She battled against housing precarity, the health system and society’s expectations of her. Margo never once gave an inch of ground to those who doubted her personhood and dignity.
Margo was a unique spirit, living life with one foot on the ground and the other in the totally abstract. She loved to communicate, both through talking and writing notes and her masterfully poetic emails. Her high pitched voice and the release of her laughter was her own personal signature.
Margo was a talented artist. Her calligraphy and charts, drawings and letters covered CKUT. Margo’s distinct handstyle is everywhere; on banker’s boxes, on records in the library, on notes posted throughout the building. Her paintings depicted many scenes but focused especially on plants and vegetation, often lush and verdant. One recurring theme was vegetation overgrowing doorways -doors that surely opened into spaces that only Margo knew. Music coordinator Alex Moskos used one of Margo’s paintings as the cover image for a record of electronic music.
Margo’s radio programming – especially her weekly show Adventures In Music – was as unique as she was, combining layers of electronic music, the sounds of the weather (Weather Report by Chris Watson was a personal favorite of hers) and her own weather reports and reflections on life and the world around her.
She is grieved by her family who reside in the United States, her children and by the hundreds of CKUT volunteers whom she touched. We love you Margo – may your journey into the cosmos be liberating.
Margo famously said in her final days “I’m going to the final after party.”
Two of Margo’s gorgeous paintings. Wish we had more.
Old records often turn up featuring Margo’s distinct handwriting. Like this “library/sound effects” record.
This chart, projecting what can only be good times for CKUT, hangs in the volunteer room where steering meets each week. Margo once wrote about CKUT’s steering meetings: “Staff, meetings are always the mysterious,mystical and otherwise down right ritualistic. To say the least, at least now food is taken too these places of gatherings where the un-spoken is spoken.”
Margo caught on video in Stuart Greer’s wonderful documentary about CKUT’s 1992 Funding drive.
Margo in 1999 with Pohanna, Lorrie and Dexter X.
Margo and current music coordinator Alex Moskos in 2016.
A volunteer appreciation spot about Margo that features Margo doing the weather.
Long time CKUT host and community Pat Dillon remembers Margo on West Indian Rhythms on Sat 12th 2026.
