o2 ideas' Shelley Stewart Inducted Into Inaugural Alabama Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame

o2 ideas' Shelley Stewart Inducted Into Inaugural Alabama Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., July 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Shelley Stewart became the first African American to be inducted into the Alabama Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame, during the ABA's Summer Convention in Point Clear. Stewart, a longtime Birmingham disc jockey, talk show host and radio station owner during a 55-year broadcasting career, is also Chairman and CEO of o2 ideas, a full-service advertising and public relations agency in Birmingham.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080722/CLTU135 )

Stewart overcame impoverished beginnings and family tragedies as a child to eventually become one of Birmingham's best-known radio personalities and one of America's most prominent African American businessmen. Born into the deeply segregated city of Birmingham in the 1930s, he survived witnessing his own mother's murder, suffering abandonment as an infant, and severe abuse as a child. Out of this story of poverty and neglect emerged a man who taught himself to read, later citing his voracious reading appetite for keying his later success.

Beginning as a radio personality in 1949 and sometimes known by his on-air moniker of "Shelley the Playboy," his broadcasts during Birmingham's human rights struggles of the 1960s served as a critical communication path for young African Americans involved in street protests there. His loyal following also included a great many white listeners, which had the effect of bringing the races together through music during that turbulent era. Stewart's "parallel career" in advertising also began in the 1960s, and his lifetime odyssey is chronicled in The Road South, a book by Time Warner.

ABA Executive Director Sharon Tinsley said "it is an honor, and highly fitting, for the Alabama Broadcasters to have Shelley Stewart in our first-ever Hall of Fame class. We developed the idea for the Hall of Fame to honor those key personalities who have filled our lives with great broadcasting content and programming over the decades. Shelley was a voice to so many who never had a 'voice' of their own, and it's the right time to celebrate his contribution to life in Alabama."

Besides Stewart and 34 past winners of the ABA Broadcaster of the Year award, also inducted into the inaugural ABA Hall of Fame class were Bert Bank, retired radio station owner and founder of the University of Alabama Football Network; Voncile Pearce, retired CEO of Radio South, Inc.; and posthumously, Keith Barze of WBRC TV and the University of Alabama, who set up the first public television station in the state; and Dot Moore, a longtime TV personality in Mobile.

About o2 ideas

o2 ideas is a leading marketing and retail communications company based in Birmingham, AL. Clients include Verizon Wireless Midwest Area, Taylor Morrison, The Home Depot, Honda Manufacturing of Alabama, Samford University, Verizon Wireless GA/AL, and Alabama State University among many others. Numerous other Birmingham-area clients include The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation, The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, 16th Street Baptist Church, bewhoyouwannabe among others. For more information about o2 ideas, visit http://www.o2ideas.com/ .

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Source: o2 ideas

CONTACT: Bill Todd of o2 ideas, +1-205-949-9547, bill@o2ideas.com

Web site: http://www.o2ideas.com/

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