Dot Dawson, 100 years old today with her younger husband Smokey, who is only aged 93

Smokey & Dot present the Australian Country Music Showcase on Sydney’s North Shore community radio station FM 99.3 every Monday at 12 midday.

The station has declared Thursday 12 October as ‘Dot Dawson Day’ and all through the day the station is broadcasting excerpts of her programs and interviews.

Smokey & Dot met in 1939, have no children and live on the North Shore. Smokey was 93 in March this year.

For thirty years their Smokey Dawson’s Ranch, on 26 acres at Ingleside became a popular second home for many local children, where parents could drop them off and Smokey & Dot would teach them some of the good values of life.

Born Florence Cheers in Echuca Victoria in 1906, Dot Dawson had a very successful career in broadcasting in the 30’s and 40’s before she met Smokey at an amateur radio station in Melbourne. Smokey Dawson’s radio show and later his tv shows made he and Dot household names in the golden days of radio and the early days of tv in this country.

Their Country Music Showcase commenced on FM 99.3 when the station started broadcasting in May 1983 and has continued without interruption since that time. This means that they have presented in excess of 1,200 programs continuously.

The program comprises of popular country music from some of the greats of the genre, including Smokey himself, as well as extracts from the radio serial, which starred Smokey and was broadcast for many years. In recent years increasing ill-health has kept Dot away from the microphone.