Spending many days at North Toronto Collegiate Institute playing basketball and other sports, Jee-Yun Lee wasn’t sure what to do when her graduation date crept up.
When it came, like many other graduates, she had quite a lot to look back on.
In Lee’s senior year, her basketball team won the city championships. She had a good group of friends that were attracted to her bubbly and fun personality. But now as a journalist, looking back on those days, it’s hard to trace how Jee-Yun Lee the high school athlete became Jee-Yun Lee, the CP24 anchor and reporter that we have come to know so well.
When at North Toronto, her attraction to sports meant that she had to find a way to fit the practices and drills that came with being an athlete around her high school life. Lee credits that as being a key factor in her learning the importance of punctuality.
For those who know her personally today, chances are that she’d be among the most honest, hard-working and loyal people that they know. But for the rest of us, she’s one of the lucky few who gets to inform thousands of Torontonians on the goings on of their city (and the world). Given that she’s a journalist in one of the largest cities in North America, Lee’s job tends to be anything but dull.
“I interview some of the most interesting people you will ever meet, and I get a front-row seat to history in the making,” Lee says. “I am lucky to do a job that I love.”
But the job isn’t as easy as you might think. It’s a competitive field, and some might say it favours people who are natural storytellers, which Lee admits she isn’t.
“I had to work really hard to get where I am today,” Lee says. “There was no secret formula. I basically worked long hours and took on every task that I could to improve my skills.”
And so far it seems all her hard work has paid off. Striving to improve her journalism skills over the years, Lee moved up from a local CTV station in Saskatchewan to her home now at CP24. This is all while managing an acting career on the side, appearing in a handful of TV shows and movies (including The Incredible Hulk and Repo Men). But her time at North Toronto is one that she cherishes.
“My husband and I are considering moving just so our son could attend North Toronto,” says Lee.