Long-time beloved Columbus country radio personality to be honored with his own day

A long-time Columbus radio personality will be honored this week with a day in his name.

Bear O’Brian, of Kissin’ 99.3, will be celebrated by the Columbus Collective Museums at 2 p.m. on December 18 at the Georgia Radio Museum & Hall of Fame, 3218 Hamilton Road in Columbus.

O’Brian, whose real name is Wade Collier, told the Ledger-Enquirer he got into radio because he “just wanted to entertain.” O’Brian said he wanted to be a rock n’ roll drummer for years but realized he wasn’t going to make it after he was told he ‘wasn’t that good’ in an audition in Nashville.

So, O’Brian decided to go into radio, he told the Ledger-Enquirer. O’Brian said to have a day named for him all these years later is “unbelievable.”

“That’s just something a good ol’ country boy like me just cannot, I can’t fathom somebody saying it’s your day,” O’Brian said. “. . . It’s humbling.”

O’Brian didn’t take any credit for the honor though. “God blesses me so much, and this is all through him, “ he said.

O’Brian, who was inducted in the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, said, “I just want to be able to know people will remember me. I hope I did a good enough job and gave people everything I had that they would remember me.”

Yet, after nearly 48 years in radio, the one thing O’Brian remembers in his career is not a big concert but when, he said, God turned things around.

After getting into the radio business in Columbus and getting a little bit of a name for himself, he let it go to his head, and his “ego went crazy,” O’Brian said.

“For the first nine or 10 years,” he said, “I was all about me.”

O’Brian said he became a Christian at the age of 14. It was almost like he told God he was going to put him on the back burner, he said.

After about a decade on the radio in Columbus, he went on the road doing stand-up comedy for about a year and a half. He was somewhere in Iowa when he had a breakdown at 3 a.m. in a hotel room while staring in the mirror, he said.

Wade Collier had the breakdown, O’Brian clarified, and he stood in the mirror and cussed Bear O’Brian.

“This character that I had created had taken over my life,” he said.

“There was a turning point where God said, ‘We’re going to straighten this out,’” O’Brian said.

God wanted him to come back to radio and do it his way, he said.

“He didn’t want me to go and start preaching to people on the radio,” O’Brian said. “He just wanted me to do it his way.”

“That was the biggest part of my career,” he said, “when God turned it around and said, ‘All right, you’ve had your fun. Now lets go do it the right way.’”

Within three weeks, he had canceled all his upcoming shows, walked away and drove back home. O’Brian then returned radio in Columbus.

Health update

O’Brian has been battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He has gone through two rounds of chemotherapy with a total of six rounds of chemotherapy to be taken 21 days apart.

The chemotherapy will be followed by two rounds of another treatment for eight weeks total. O’Brian figures treatment will be wrapped up by February.

Columbus Collective Museums

Kaitlynn Etheridge, with the Columbus Collective Museums, they wanted to have a Bear O’Brian Day because he has contributed to every single community he’s been a part of for over 47 years.

She said O’Brian isn’t just a radio personality but a pillar in the community for raising awareness of events for nonprofits. O’Brian is the “face of radio in this town” and is a “good man,” she said.

Etheridge’s grandfather, Allen Woodall Jr., was in the radio business for years. Woodall said O’Brian’s voice and personality are among the greatest Columbus has had on radio.

O’Brian is a “living legend,” Woodall said, and has done so much for the community of Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley.

“He is really appreciated and loved by hundreds, if not thousands of people,” Woodall said.

This story was originally published December 16, 2024 at 5:00 AM.