The Northern Ontario Country Music Association (NOCMA) had a celebration at the Moose Lodge on Sunday to honor its 2016 inductees into The Great Northern Opry (GNO) and The Northern Ontario Country Music Hall of Fame (NOCMHF).
In the first weekend of November, at the Annual Northern Ontario Country Music Awards Weekend (NOCMAW), Hugh Allan and Fred Pelletier will officially enter the GNO and George Pinder will be entering the NOCMHF.
NOCMA started in 1989 as an organization that aimed to celebrate Northern Ontario artists that didn’t choose a commercial country music career but instead worked jobs and raised families while writing, performing, or making some other contribution to Northern Ontario country music.
“An awful lot of artists don’t go into the commercial end of the music industry and there were no organizations out there that recognized those people,” said NOCMA President and Founder Dave Patterson.
Patterson said the contents of NOCMHF are currently in a storage locker as they are without a home but he is hoping to soon find a space at the TECH.
The NOCMAW is November 4-6 this year.