Dante St James

Dante Daniel Sebastian St James (born June 16, 1974) is an Australian radio announcer, primarily known for his work with the Hot 100 fm station in Darwin in the Northern Territory.

Childhood

St James was born in Brisbane, but spent his childhood in Sydney after his adoption into a local family.

Not much is known about his childhood except that he lived in the suburb of Engadine, and according to recent on-air mentions, attended both the Engadine High School and Inaburra School. He is known in his teenage years to have become involved in local churches including the St George's Anglican Parish of Engadine and the Engadine Church of Christ. Later in his teenage years, he was also known to have been involved with the Sydney Christian Life Centre (now Hillsong Church, Waterloo).

Some rumours state that St James was an accomplished pianist, scholar and athlete in these earlier years, and he has been known to mentioned on-air that he "ran" at a high level in High School years.

University years

Even less is known about St James' University Years, and the only mentions of his university attendance on radio have been vague references to "Psychology" and "Behavioural Sciences" as his areas of study. It is rumoured that he spent his years of study at the University of Western Sydney, but this is not yet confirmed by St James himself.

It is known, thought, that St James attended Bible College at the now deregistered "Aquila College" through his time at the Sydney Christian Life Centre. He completed courses in Christian Counselling and Biblical Studies before completing his Bachelor of Theology at the Southern Cross College of the Assemblies of God in Sydney.

Lost years

Some allegorical references have been made to these years by St James in various radio broadcasts, particularly those in Darwin, yet no confirmation has been made of these "lost years". St James has made references to a period between 1994 and 1996 in which he was involved in hard drug-use and prostitution. On Darwin radio he once claimed to have "slept on the streets of Darlinghurst and worked The Wall and The Fountain to make money to buy heroin" ( [Hot100FM Radio Broadcast, May 8, 2005] ).

Although such references can never be verified, confirmation has been made of his many arrests at this time, as well as court appearances for solicitation and drug possession. He is also believed to have over-dosed on heroin a number of times, leading to an enforced period of rehabilitation at Sydney's North Shore Hospital. Again, this cannot be confirmed, except that St James has mentioned in some Darwin radio broadcasts that this occurred.

Reclamation

Some time in 1996, St James is believed to have been released from drug rehabilitation and gained employment with a telecommunications company in customer service, during which time (and again, little is known about the period) he managed to move from customer service in one company, to being an Information Technology Business Analyst in another company on the Gold Coast some years later. It is believed that it was during this time that he began his path to becoming a radio announcer.

Although little is known about his health at this stage, it is claimed that 1996 was also the year in which St James first was diagnosed with the lymphatic cancer, Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma.

Radio career

At some point in 2000, St James began volunteering at a Gold Coast Christian broadcaster, Life FM and then over the course of three years worked his way up to being the station's first Program Director. Under the mentorship of Malcolm Pollard of Brisbane's 96five FM he learned the art of radio programming and attended the 96five Radio School. Due to work commitments back on the Gold Coast he was unable to complete the course and continued as Program Director and Breakfast presenter for the station before he was removed from the station due to "ideological and theological differences" between the station's board and himself ( [Hot 100 Darwin radio broadcast on July 14, 2006] ).

Some would say that a radio career would be over at this point, but St James then applied for employment in commercial radio with Northern Territory Broadcasters where he was successful at being made the copywriter and floating announcer for Hot100FM and Mix1049. After just 12 months he was asked to apply for the sought-after Breakfast announcing position, and was successful in this application, being promoted to the prime full-time on-air position in December 2003, replacing John Bain. Now being teamed-up with Veronica Howson, St James began a process of personality development that included on-air stunts (such as eating whole pavolvas, bullriding, shark diving and many outside broadcasts) with his co host that saw the station tracking well ahead of sister station Mix 1049 and other community and national broadcasters in Darwin. Although no official survey was held at the time, the success of the show was accepted throughout the Darwin business community.

In February 2007, he transferred to Hot 100 fm's sister station Mix 104.9 to anchor the breakfast show there with Wendy Holt, a new arrival from Western Australia. He was also promoted to Assistant Program Director under Pete Hill. This continued until April 2007 when St James was diagnosed with a recurrence of the Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma that he had previously battled in 1996, 1999 and 2004. This necessitated a move to a larger city for specialised treatment with Perth's Mount Hospital as his preferred treatment centre. With successful treatment, he was discharged from the program in late June, 2007 at which point he gained employment in another Grant Broadcasters radio station in Hobart, Tasmania where he is now the anchor for the 7HO FM101.7 station's breakfast show, "Tori & The Saint at Breakfast".

St James became known on Darwin radio primarily for baring intimate details about his personal life, including details of his birth, adoption, family struggles, previous drug-abuse and triumphs over cancer, a self-destructive lifestyle, and battles with church bodies and conservative lobby groups. A series in June 2006 detailed these incidents live to-air, which some industry observers dismissed as a "ratings stunt", despite there being no radio ratings survey at the time.

He is also, however, known for on-air stunts, including an attempt to eat an entire large pavlova during a show, having his back-hair waxed, and starting up a Hot 100 radio tenpin bowling team that is renowned for losing most of its games.

Other pursuits

St James lent his voice to the 2005 Arafura Games telecast on Darwin's Southern Cross Television station, has been active on the local presentation and Master of Ceremonies circuit, and has worked voluntarily as a personality for charities such as Camp Quality (Charity Auction 2004, 2005), McDonald's McHappy Day (2005), Cash For Katherine (2006), The Palmlesstonnes Challenge (2005, 2006) and the NT Arthritis Association ( [Celebrity Football Tipping, 2006] ).

In Tasmania, St James has lent his support in advance to the Mother's Day Classic, a fund raiser for Breast Cancer research, fundraisers for the Fahan School and is currently assessing local charities with which he is hoping to get involved. St James is currently an Ambassador for the Leukaemia Foundation Tasmania and volunteers for the Co-Pilots Teen Mentoring Program based at Hobart's Rose Bay High School.

St James is currently the promotional "station voice" for 2ST radio station in Nowra, New South Wales and Power FM station on the south coast of New South Wales and provides a great many voice-overs for stations across the Grant Broadcasters network, most notably, BayFM and Krock stations in Geelong, Victoria.

St James is known for various other projects including "Qfrontier", a men's lifestyle online magazine that operated in Darwin in 2004 and writing various articles for men's magazines, lifestyle and travel magazines and his varied writing projects including the short story, "Mitch & Me" which was developed into a screenplay by Anthony Holt.

St James is now the sole contributor of editorial content on the 7HO FM101.7 website, a freelance writer for Evolution Publishing, and is soon to undertake a major web development project for a national radio network via his online venture, [http://www.commudiosystems.com Commudio Systems] . St James is also a current partner with the [http://www.limewrite.com.au Limewrite] media venture being directed by Joh Switzer.

References

External links

* [http://www.dantestjames.com Official site]
* [http://www.7hofm.com.au 7HO FM101.7 Website]
* [http://www.commudiosystems.com Commudio Systems Website]