I received a phone call from a good friend the other day asking for a favor. He usually calls to give me words of encouragement or talk about the newspaper industry. This call was a bit different. He wanted to let folks in Bowling Green know he hadn’t passed away, he had just moved.

I was humbled that he thought my column would help get the word out as I am a novice at writing and he is such an icon in Kentucky travel and column writing.

So here you go Bowling Green, Gary West is alive and well. He just moved up I-65 to Elizabethtown where he grew up.

West is someone I have known through Western Kentucky University sports and his work as an author and columnist for years. I never imagined decades ago that I would some day be getting tips from the man himself, or that I would be running his columns in my newspapers.

He has been very gracious in his comments, tips and suggestions about my column writing journey. He understands my struggles and often offers advice. He is a true storyteller at heart. Every call begins with a story or an idea. It comes natural to him, much more so than it does for me.

His recent call requesting I put the word out that “Gary has left the building” included a story about the drama surrounding his move. He spoke of how he didn’t get out Bowling Green unscathed or arrive in E’town without issue. He went into storytelling mode as he recounted how a school bus backed into his prized Fiat convertible in Bowling Green, scarring the hood and windshield in a painful way. Adding insult to injury days later, a neighbor they were staying with until their new house was ready backed into the family car.

After regaling me with his automobile woes, he went on to give me some advice on how to get over my writer’s block that I recently talked about. He said you have great material right in front of you. He was talking about my father-in-law, Bobby Williams, who is known for his story-telling abilities as a 50-year educator, coach and 5th Region official. The other content, he suggested, should come from the late Joe Kelly Jaggers, my high school football coach at Ft. Knox in the early ’80s.

West is very familiar with both men having known them and written about them over the years. It’s advice I can’t and won’t pass up. West has street cred in the industry and is well known and well read across the state for his travel and sports writing.

I wouldn’t be doing my job as a journalist if I didn’t share with you a little about his background, career and accomplishments.

Gary is a native of Elizabethtown, but lived in Bowling Green since 1971. He attended Western and later the University of Kentucky where he used his journalism degree and a stint as a newspaper editor in North Carolina to prepare himself for a career in advertising and publishing. His business career began with the Penny Saver and Country Peddler.

West served as executive director of the Hilltopper Athletic Foundation and did color commentary for the Hilltopper Basketball Network. In 1993 he became the executive director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. During a 13 year term, he helped bring the Girl’s Sweet Sixteen High School Basketball Tournament to Bowling Green and helped promote Lost River Cave and the National Corvette Museum, according to his bio online.

Gary threw himself into writing full-time in his second career begining in 2006. He writes a syndicated column, Out & About … Kentucky Style, for quite a few Kentucky newspapers and is the author of eight books. One of his latest: “Kentucky Colonels of the American Basketball Association: The Real Story of a Team Left Behind” was published by Acclaim Press in 2011. Two of his most popular include: “Eating Your Way Across Kentucky: 101 Must Places to Eat” (updated ed. in 2006) and “Shopping Your Way Across Kentucky,” (2008) both published by Acclaim Press.

I call him Kentucky’s leading travel writer sharing his travel secrets through his columns, book signings and appearances at the Soky Bookfest. Gary West says he has a simple criteria when it comes to writing books. “I only take on a project that I will enjoy writing about and I only write about something I think people will enjoy reading,” he says.

At the end of the call the other day, West said, “Joe, I just write about what people want to read.”

Thank you, Gary for your friendship, tips, encouragement and great stories over the years. I look forward to your next book, column and hearing about life back home in E’town.

– Daily News Publisher Joe Imel can be reached at (270) 783-3273 or via email at joe.imel@ bgdailynews.com.