Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Happy Birthday, Casey Kasem

I have essentially embraced three heroes in my life: writer Darrell Laurant, whom I met when I interned for the Lynchburg News & Advance in college, who taught me (by example) that it's as important to entertain the reader as it is to inform. Back then I was too intimidated to actually spend much time with him, but I studied his words and style with fervor and to this day, owe him one helluva handshake. He remains in the same job, a local legend, well-read, respected and maintains a humanity in his journalism that—when I return home to visit the parents—is as fresh as it was some 25 years ago.

Second, there's Dr. Luke Pillis, my high school orthodontist, who put braces on my teeth and corrected my god-awful adolescent buck teeth. God bless this man, who actually tightened my wires ultra-intensely two months before my junior prom so that I could have them off for the event. Now that's empathy. Sadly, today, the doc lives in the same community as my parents, however, Alzheimer's has taken him from us.

And then there's Casey Kasem, who turned 76 on Monday. As a kid—like so many of us who grew up in the '70s—I listened to "American Top 40" every week and wrote down the countdown by hand and would all but memorize it by the next weekend. As a freshman in college, a classmate informed me that Billboard was carried in the student union, with the whole Billboard Hot 100 in print (including Sheena Easton's early career, which I obsessed over week by week). But that didn't stop me from listening every Saturday night.

Casey hosted the Billboard Radio Awards in 1997 and as radio editor at Billboard, I had the daunting task of writing his script for the show. Talk about surreal. He was an absolute gentleman, and meticulous in making sure that he had every pronunciation down pat. I had the opportunity to share with him what he had meant to me—and actually teared up as we said our farewell. Truly one of the most memorable events of my career.Within the year, I again approached Casey, asking if I might write a 2,000-word article in Billboard about his accomplishments (such exhaustive pieces simply no longer exist today). He obliged, making for a story that I embraced with much love. So happy birthday, indeed. I celebrate my hero with gusto.

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