Hi Odyssey fans, I'm Jesse, editor of Focus on the Family Clubhouse magazine.

And I'm Bob, producer of the Adventures in Odyssey Club.

Welcome to the official Adventures in Odyssey podcast.

Today we remember a friend of ours, actor Earl Bowen.

Earl passed away on January 5th of this year at the age of 81.

Earl played a number of roles on Adventures in Odyssey including a Roman general in Back

to Bethlehem, King Zerce's in Bernard and Esther, and reporter Brink Chetley in the

OT Action News episodes.

But he's most well known as two other characters, a couple of folks who would be near the top of

any list of the most enduring and popular characters in Odyssey.

We're remembering Earl today with a vintage interview from 2002.

You'll hear Earl and Paul McCusker who was executive producer at the time.

Let's listen.

First show you were in was Case of the Secret Room, you played a detective.

That was actually in the first year of production.

What you stumbled on today may have taken care of a mystery that's been unsolved in Odyssey

for better than 40 years.

A year later we had decided that we needed a nemesis for what.

We had talked about it and we thought we need a genuine bad guy.

We need somebody who's going to come into town and cause problems.

And I remember sitting in the writer's meetings and we were discussing names and I believe

it was Phil who came up with the name Regis Blackard.

...