The Festival City is honouring Lloyd Robertson, CTV's chief anchor and senior editor, naming a day and the gardens outside city hall in his honour.
A crowd gathered and there was applause as Stratford Mayor Dan Mathieson made the official announcement Wednesday afternoon.
"This park sits at this vista where he got the bug, and it's now only fitting that he should now have that vista named after him, after an illustrious 60 year career."
Instead of being the face and voice of so many important news events, for once Robertson himself was the focus.
He says "This is a great surprise to me…and I'm just thrilled by it because this is the area where I began, just across the road there."
Robertson started his broadcasting career in 1952 at the CJCS radio station in Stratford, which is his hometown.
But he says his passion started even earlier, at the age of 12, "I was under the platform at the radio station listening to the guys call the parade of the Perth Regiment...right up Downie Street."
He was hooked, and after working in Stratford went on to other radio stations, the CBC and then finally CTV, where he has been for more than forty years.
"It really is a great moment for me here," Robertson says "because I believe that as someone who deals in news all the time and for me historically, you have to know your roots and you have to appreciate and understand where you came from, and this is where I came from and I'm very proud of that and I'm very proud of what this city has become."
One of the city's most well-known attractions, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival launched in 1953, during Robertson's time working in the city.
There is widespread local appreciation for who he has become and what he has accomplished, but in Robertson's typical dry manner, he said he was simply glad to have the gardens named for him before Justin Bieber could snatch the honour.
Robertson leaves the anchor desk at CTV National News on Sept. 1, the day that is being named in his honour.
