Saying Goodbye to a Voice of Our Community
For the last six or so years, every Tuesday morning, about 7:30, I waited for the phone to ring from our local radio jockey, Tim Alsobrooks.
And then for the next 5–10 minutes we would mass communicate to the world of Henry County all the great advantages for buying from my local business.
It was his old boss, Gary Benton, who sold me on the idea of doing the call-in advertisement. And because I’d known Tim since he first started in radio here, it was a no brainer. There would be zero issue with chemistry. He was easy to talk with.
And that’s the thing about Tim, whether you knew him ten years or ten minutes, conversation came easy.
For me, as a conniving businessperson, trying to get as much airtime for my buck, was always my goal.
But Tim, knowing the tight wallet of Gary, was always a professional. And he’d most always wrap the conversation up tight in the allotted time. And off we’d both go into our days.
But every once in a while, I’d get him. Every once in a while, I’d throw out some baseball trivia and boom, I’d get an extra couple of minutes of precious airtime.
Having never been a Braves fan and mostly given up loyalty to baseball, these victories for me, were few and far between. Tim was a baseball fanboy. He knew the game inside and out. So my conversation extensions were limited.
On the other hand, he and I both loved food. And so that was one debate where I could hold my own.
In particular, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving was a good talk this year. We both waxed lovingly about our Thanksgiving dinners. Of note I recall Tim telling me about learning how to make dressing this year with his mom. It was his favorite thing of the holiday.
He was pumped about it and looking forward to continuing that tradition with his family.
That’s good stuff. That tells you a lot about someone.
Now every so often, I’d miss the call. I’d forget it was Tuesday or I’d forget what time it was and still be at home or in the shower or have my phone on silent. And from time to time, Tim would take vacation.
No big deal. It wasn’t necessary for him to let me know.
But if it wasn’t the latter, Tim always held up his end of the bargain. As a matter of fact, he’d do a better job talking up my business when I wasn’t on the phone!
So it didn’t come as any huge surprise last week when I missed his call. I didn’t even bother checking the phone.
Later I found out Tim had been out sick all week. And on Saturday of course, all of us locals found out Tim suffered a fatal heart attack.
It’s really wild how in this time of social media overload, where all information is at your fingertips all the time, the local disc jockey, can still be the center of our community.
And so now our little community, over the last twenty or so years, have lost two voices, too young. Gary Powley for years rode with us into work every morning, talked with us about our businesses, helped us volunteers explain Relay for Life, until tragically his life was cut short by cancer.
And now our boy Tim is lost even earlier to heart disease.
One of my people mentioned how they never actually met Tim, but if they called in to give a birthday shout out, they felt like they knew him!
You will be missed ol buddy. Your friendships were exponential. Thanks for being the voice of our town. Thanks for being the messenger of things big and small.
Go Braves.