A popular radio DJ and television cameraman on the verge of a TV gig Outside and eagerly facing fatherhood is dead after his truck crashed early Sunday morning on the Alaska Highway near Crestview.

Terry Carlick was 21.

Carlick started at CHON-FM, the Yukon's first nation broadcaster, as a student working part-time. More recently, despite his young age, he used his nearly four years' experience to help train both youth and elders whose voices now grace the airwaves.

'He had virtually no experience at all,' station general manager Shirley Adamson said about Carlick's early days at CHON. 'He had an interest, he had a desire.'

A school guidance counsellor's hunch that a career in radio might interest Carlick got the student started.

'Then he carved a niche out for himself as the Rocking Terry Carlick. That is what he was well-known for, particularly amongst his peers.

'He created the Rockin' Terry Carlick persona and created a huge following,' Adamson said, calling the response to Carlick's show 'tremendous.

'I think it's because people felt, particularly the youth, that it was a reflection of themselves,' she continued.

The young man was conscientious about the content of the music he played, especially the rap that can include swearing, violence and sexually graphic lyrics, she added.

The young man was a positive role model for his community's youth, several co-workers said.

Initially, Carlick played hip hop, rap and rock music for an hour, but as he gained experience, he talked his bosses into giving him more time. His show grew to three hours, between 6 and 9 p.m. every weekday.

'It could have gone more if he could have convinced me to let him stay behind the mic longer,' the general manager said, chuckling.

Though he loved the microphone, Carlick was keen to help others learn that skill as well, training many of the people, especially youth, who've worked at CHON.

But not all of his students were as young as him. Adamson recalls the show's Southern Tutchone-speaking host, a woman named Trudy McLeod who could qualify as an elder, who was initially reluctant about the technology.

'Before long, Terry had her trained up so that she was operating the equipment ... she's got two mouse pads going at any given time.

'Nothing would prevent him from passing on his knowledge and helping anybody in any way he could,' Adamson said.

Part of Carlick's duties included producing radio ads.

'Not very many people got past him they had to do some liner notes and some commercials for him.'

Carlick stayed on with the radio station all through high school and after graduation as a technician operator. In the last six months, he was given on-the-job training as a television camera operator. Carlick filmed and packaged the Christmas pledge show, several episodes of Nedaa as well as the territorial legislature sittings.

This month, NNBY had scheduled a former director of television at the station to do two weeks of in-house training with Carlick. Then, in April, Carlick was to head to Winnipeg for a week of training at the Aboriginal People's Television Network before working with that television crew to film the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards.

'So all of this was days away for him,' said Adamson. 'He was certainly a bright and shining star for us. He was a role model and just a huge loss to us.

'He was like a younger brother or a son to everybody in the station.'

Lyndsay Amato, who started at CHON a year ago with two weeks of training on Carlick's show, said her mentor and friend was excited about the APTN training and filming the prestigious awards show.

'That was all he was looking forward to now,' she said. 'That and his baby.'

Carlick's girlfriend is due to give birth to their child in three weeks, noted Amato. Because they didn't know yet if it's to be a boy or a girl, Carlick had saved up several thousand dollars for baby things, to be spent as soon as the child was born.

He was excited to be a dad, she said.

Along with his extended family, Carlick leaves behind a brother and a sister as well as parents Kim and William, who was a councillor with the Kwanlin Dun First Nation for a number of years.

In a three-hour tribute on CHON this morning, friends, family and members of native communities across the territory called into the show to offer stories about Carlick and condolences to his family.

Amato recalls her first two weeks at CHON as a clash of two stubborn personalities as she learned the ropes on Carlick's show.

'We didn't get along during that two weeks,' she said. 'I was too mouthy .... He thought that I thought I knew it all.'

As soon as the two weeks were up and they had their own shows, the pair were close friends, said Amato.

As per the station's philosophy of having new radio announcers jump right in, Carlick 'was like, OK, we're going on after this song.' That was the only warning I ever got,' said Amato.

But by the end of the week, she was comfortable controlling the sound board. At the end of the two weeks, she could do the show alone.

'I did learn a lot,' said Amato, grinning. 'I learned not to interrupt. I learned to be patient.'

Amato now hosts a show on Saturday afternoons and Sunday evenings. Early on, Carlick would stop by the station on weekends and make sure she was OK. Once he was sure his young co-worker was comfortable, he'd still call to see if she needed anything.

Not that Carlick was one to coddle his trainees.

'I would ask him for help and he would tell me no he knows I could do it,' the teen said. 'He would stand there and watch me do it myself.

'Terry believed in everyone. If you said you couldn't do something, he believed you could.'

Amato was one of several CHON co-workers to note Carlick's happy-go-lucky nature.

'His mood was very, very contagious,' said Amato. 'If he was happy, you were happy. If he was sad, you could feel it.'

CHON's radio director, Les Carpenter, recalls Carlick as the 'exuberant, bouncy' employee who was always ready to talk music or cars, and who never feared a good challenge.

'In fact, I think he was always looking for that,' Carpenter said in his office at the station this morning.

'He left his mark with everybody,' said Carpenter. 'He had a desire to succeed and a desire to excel.'

If he wasn't bouncing into Carpenter's office to chat, he was coming in to drag him off to hear something he'd produced, said the director of radio.

'There had to be excellence there he wasn't happy with second-rate,' said Carpenter, who knew Carlick since October 2000 when he arrived in his director's chair. 'He looked to everyone to challenge him and he looked to himself to succeed.'

The 21-year-old Carlick, though a big fan of hip hop, was one of a group of music connoisseurs at the station who were always scouring the annals of music to one up each other by finding an obscure piece of music.

'He was right there in the hunt to try and find that stuff too,' said Carpenter.

The last thing he got Carlick hooked on was some late 1960's Ozark Mountain Daredevils, he recalled.

Carlick would often root through Carpenter's collection of '50s and '60s tunes.

'He thought that was pretty cool,' said Carpenter. 'He listened to everything.'

Carlick's other passion, vehicles, led the young man to regularly offer his help on the older man's truck, 'whether I wanted it or not.

'There's going to be a huge hole to try and fill.'

A vigil for those who wish to remember Carlick is planned for this evening between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Carlick's time slot on the radio at the CHON-FM offices on Fourth Avenue.