Doug

The entire Southern Gospel music community is stunned today. Mourning has not even begun yet because everyone is in such disbelief.

The soft-spoken Gold City drummer with the Southern drawl (said in all love and respect) is gone.

When everyone retired for the evening last night, no one thought they'd awake to discover that Doug Riley had been killed in a tragic auto accident. As I write this, details are still sketchy on what actually caused the accident, but sadly, the end result doesn't change. For the second time this month, one of Southern Gospel music's younger members has been taken away.

Doug leaves behind his wife Amy Jo and two small children, Chapen and Griffin.

But he also leaves behind a tremendous testimony.

Over the past ten years or so, I've talked with Doug at literally hundreds of concerts. And, this morning, as I thought back over those many conversations, I've realized that not once did we talk about Southern Gospel music nor did we really talk about Gold City all that much.

Family. That's all Doug wanted to talk about.

Doug was a master of keeping everyone up to date about the latest activities of his children. If you wanted him to, he could give you complete play-by-play reports on Chapen's ball games and, more than likely, give you the exact weight of every fish he helped his son catch. Though Griffin is too young to have been involved in a lot of those things, you could tell Doug was just itchin' to involve his youngest child in a wide array of sports activities and more.

As for Amy Jo...all you had to do to get Doug to smile was to mention her name.

Family was Doug's world. Every so often, I'd work a date with Gold City when one of Doug's family was celebrating a birthday or taking part in a special event. Even though Doug was a pro, you could tell his heart and mind were in Alabama.

And for a such a young person in such a hectic world with so many distractions, that alone spoke volumes about Doug.

I last saw Doug Saturday, January 21, in Gainesville, GA. He was running sound for Gold City and as he sat behind the board in the very last row of that massive auditorium, I walked up to him and asked him, "Well, do you miss playing on stage?" He looked up at me and said, "I sure do. I'm awful at this."

And then, before I could say another word...

"Did I tell you what my kids did last week? Here, sit down and..."

Somewhere in Heaven...at this very moment...

Doug's saying the exact same thing again.