Bowling Green community remembers Barry Williams

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – The Bowling Green community has lost a legend, as longtime radio icon with WBGN as well as former PA announcer for WKU Basketball Barry Williams passed away on Thursday, September 25 at the age of 78.

“He would call me Cowchip. It was just… if you know Barry, that’s the way he was, he would call you by a different name. He’d say something quirky or kind of smart alecky, but it was all in good fun. Back to him, I called him Jay Barely,” News 40 Weather Chief Chris Allen, who worked with Williams at WBGN, says.

Barry was a huge impact on the radio community in Bowling Green, helping move WBGN across Fairview Avenue to become The Gator G-107.

“It gave me an opportunity to get to work with Barry and his staff for several years, and I can tell you that Barry is one of the most generous and yet funny people to ever work for because he was always kidding. He always had something funny to say, but yet when it got down to business, Barry was all about business,” Allen says.

He also cared about helping nonprofits in the area, serving on the board for Kentucky Kids on the Block and being a right hand man to director Ashley Reynolds.

“Barry was just every nonprofit director’s dream. We were just always amazed at how Barry could show up at everything and be still such a family man and such a community servant to other non-profits and such an amazing benefactor to Western with everything that he did for the Lady Toppers,” she says.

Barry was also involved with the Historic Railpark and Train Museum and served as a Chamber ambassador, all on top of doing radio and announcing, and he did it for one reason.

“He was in it to be in the community… and then being on the board of directors for Kids on the Block and some of the other things that he was involved in. He was just the voice of the community for so many years, and I think he’ll always be remembered that way,” Allen says.

He’ll most be remembered, though, for the impact he’s made in the community.

“I just feel like I lost the person that I knew would always be there… and that’s big shoes to fill, but I know Barry would say there will be more Barry’s and they’ll have different names than he had, and his legacy will live on forever,” Reynolds says.

A celebration of life will be held for Barry Williams on Saturday, October 4th at 1PM at Eastwood Baptist Church, located at 500 Eastwood Street in Bowling Green.

The family asks in lieu of flowers to donate to either Kentucky Kids on the Block or the Bowling Green Warren County Humane Society.