Please allow me to offer, on behalf of his tens of thousands of fans and friends, heartfelt congratulations to Handsome Harley Drew at radio station WGAC-AM (580) on the celebration of his 50th anniversary in radio this week.

By any measure, Harley Drew is an icon to all his peers, and I have been blessed to call him a friend for all those 50 years.

For the majority of those 50 years, he has been the king of Augusta radio, especially since his days back with WBBQ when it was by far the No. 1 radio station in the country for secondary markets. Harley was operations manager and part of the daily lineup on "Tiger Radio."

Few know, but "Q" was the go-to station in the country when a record company was trying to introduce a new record and/or artist, and airtime everywhere was precious and difficult to obtain. And man, did the Q ever introduce many new artists or take great responsibility and pride in breaking many of their biggest hits.

HARLEY DREW and his music director Mike Randell (Mike Bullard off the air), who worked for Harley, selected what went on the air -- and believe me, many of the major stations throughout the country were listening to see which songs WBBQ went with.

A few of the artists who can lay a load of thanks at the feet of Harley and Mike are the Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose, Badfinger (produced by Paul McCartney), Eric Carmen, Steppenwolf, Percy Sledge, the Buckinghams, the Grass Roots, Sly and the Family Stone (especially for their comeback), the Atlanta Rhythm Section, the Five Man Electrical Band, Jim Croce -- a story could be written just on this. And I know it to be true because I was in the concert-production business at the time, and I promoted the live shows in the Bell Auditorium for WBBQ, and I was able to obtain many of these cats simply because the Q went with their records first before they went national.

ONE OF MANY, many fascinating stories, but little-known: When the Beatles were rocking the American music scene, their record company at the time -- I think it was Capitol -- always made sure that Harley Drew, Mike Randell and the crew at Q got preferential treatment and got the Beatles' releases early. On one occasion the record company sent the coveted English edition of the Beatles' latest album (the English edition had 14 songs; the American release had 12), from which the Q crew selected an obscure album cut to start playing on the air. Problem was, it was a slow song. George Weiss, owner of WBBQ and famously known as Car 1, got angry because the Beatles were a rock band and WBBQ was a rock station, and he wanted the song removed from the playlist immediately. Harley felt Weiss was wrong, and personally went toe-to-toe with Weiss -- and he finally relented, unhappily.

The name of the song was Yesterday .

We can only marvel at the people Harley Drew has hired into the radio business, sometimes when they were green, and went on to become some of the best in the business. At the risk of leaving someone out, there was Buddy Carr, Bob Bolton, Mike Dineen, Mike Rendell (voted music director of the year many times), Bob Collins, Mark Summers, Charlie Fox and now-weatherman Bob Smith. And how can we leave out former Augusta Mayor Bob Young? I know there are others, so please forgive me.

HARLEY DREW is one of those individuals who found his calling early on in life, and probably would tell you that he's never worked a day in his life while on the air. It's his passion. And who you hear is who he is. But what most people don't know is that Harley is one of the great minds on the radio business behind the scenes, and a guy who can do it all. He's always been technically astute, and has had an understanding of where technology would take radio and how to implement it.

He was in management when the feds allowed owners to have multiple stations in one market and allowed them all under one roof in the same building. This was uncharted water, and on many stressful days back in the early 1990s Harley had to forge the best way for this to be done. Many of these systems are in place today throughout the country.

AND WHAT AN inspiration Harley is to all of us. Many mornings he is up and on his way to the station at 4 a.m., as well as WGAC News Director Mary Liz Nolan, to start planning and setting up our day. My motivation on most mornings is: If they can be on the job at 6 a.m., surely I can drag my scrawny butt out of bed and join them with coffee while trying not to cut my throat with my razor. And on many days Harley is still doing a remote live broadcast at 6 p.m. the same day.

Harley Drew is a man of strong faith in his God, which has sustained him during some difficult times, especially recently, and he proudly and publicly professes it. What an example for us all. All of us are better people, and Augusta is a better place, because of the life of Harley Drew. And he's back stronger than ever, every morning -- hopefully forever and ever, for those of us who are blessed to know him and call themselves fans and friends.

God bless you, Harley. He certainly blessed us with you.