Wow what a fun night of celebrating the B.C. Interior music scene. I must admit to being a little shocked at winning the Folk Artist of the year award. I truly thought my first guitar teacher and acoustic troubadour Ari Neufeld was going to win. So it was great to see him win Male Performer of the year.

After accepting my award and returning to my seat I couldn't help but think of all the people that I missed last night in my thank you's. To the ones that didn't get a mention but should have:

Angie Clowry offered so much advice about how to get on radio it was crazy. Her help alone led to my song "There for you" being picked up by 7 Vista radio stations throughout B.C.

The musicians: Bob Gablehouse (who should have been up for Engineer of the Year), Scott Gamble (the Okanagans top drummer), Jaime Robins (who came to every single gig with me this summer - 25 of them), Dean Clark, Chris Collier, Neville Bowman, Charles (cello), Jason Morris, and thats not even all of them.

The 30K club for using my song "Love will lead you home" to help raise the awareness of a homeless solution in our community. Check out www.30kclub.com for more info

Andrew Allen: who very deservedly won New Artist of the year.

Bob Mills gave us tons of support even thought my music didn't fit his format.

The Juice (Liz and Moose) have hit Kelowna running at 103.9 and are playing my song "Yeah Yeah".
Thanks for playing local music.


your half way.. thanks for reading this far.... you can see why I didn't mention everyone from stage :)

Bob D'Eith has offered me tons of advice on music business in B.C. for over 8 years. He runs Music BC. They are opening an office in Kelowna soon at the Habitat (who won best venue by the way - congrats Quinn) and it is going to be a great referance for every level of musician in the Okanagan.

Patrick Nicol at Kiss FM (Vernon) played my song "There for you" more than any other station in the Okanagan. So much so that as Kim and I were driving to the hospital to deliver Lyla in Vernon my song "there for you" was being played on Kiss Fm. It really put a differant spin on the lyric "when you cry out I'll be there for you":)
His station has been so supportive (Rob, Denai). He always has a local song in the playlist.

Then there is those I was able to thank and might as well thank twice: my wife and baby girl Kimberly and Lyla (can't do this without amazingly supportive family), my manager Shelley Gilmore(who works so so hard everyday to build my career), Silk Fm (Andy and T.J) - who were first to pick up my songs for airplay, Ari (my first guitar teacher), and The Juice for adding "Yeah Yeah" which can be requested at music@1039thejuice.com

Great work Mark and Shelly for pulling off the show that almost didn't see the light of day.

Rhonda Draper has also poured so much time into the school show "How to follow a dream" I have been working on it truly wouldn't exist without her advice and encouragement.

To those whose names were missing from the night. Jane Eamon and Andrew Smith, you both should have been in the folk catagory. Corey Doak, we have to get you nominated for the Gospel catagory. Greg is getting lonely in that catagory.

ok so now you see why I didn't have a chance to thank everyone. Truth be told there is still 20 other names that come to me but you've done well if you've gotten this far.

cya soon.
Ryan Donn

www.ryandonn.com (Free MP3 available on the site)