Almost 300 people, many of them the who’s who of the radio industry, gathered on the Gold Coast to farewell Greg Henricks who passed away last week after a six month illness, aged 54. While some mourners came expecting a somber occasion, they instead got a bright and often humorous celebration of Hendo’s life. The family insisted that the occasion be festive with a dress code of daggy shorts and loud Hawaiian shirts. And that’s what they got.

The fierce rivalry between Hot Tomato and Macquarie’s GOLD and Sea-FM stations took a back seat for the day to focus on Greg Henricks who had touched the lives of so many.

While Greg had worked as News Director for the Macquarie network on the Gold Coast since 2005, prior to that he’d spent 20 years at 2WS which later became ARN, adding Mix and 96.1FM to his responsibilities. During that time, Hendo became a great friend of now Hot Tomato director, Hans Torv who was the breakfast announcer on WS-FM. Torv’s co-host of that era, Kayley Harris, made the trip from Sydney to attend.

The wake was held at the Courthouse Hotel in Southport, owned by Torv. All the Macquarie top brass was there including Rhys Holleran and Rod Brice. The biggest contingent to make the trip to the Gold Coast were fellow newshounds, mostly from the 2WS days, including 2UE’s Steve Blanda, Channel 7 Chief of Staff, Loyd Jones, the ABC’s Paul O’Connell and Alan Baskin who came up from Gold FM, Melbourne. ARN’s Glenn Daniel came from Sydney to MC the memorial and was kind enough to provide details to radioinfo.

Also there was former WS GM, Bob Scott and going even further back, AAP’s Tony Bartlett from Hendo’s 2SM days.

At the service Hans Torv spoke of those years at 2WS (later WS-FM) while AJ from 92.5GOLDFM spoke about Greg’s recent years at Macquarie on the Gold Coast.

Also in attendance was a contingent of top players and officials from the Gold Coast Titans NRL team. Greg had been the ground announcer for their home games. He was hoping beyond hope to be there for the season kick-off next Sunday. Sadly, he missed out by only days.

Glenn Daniel reports that the mood was more celebration than commiseration, “The direction from the family was wear your worst Hawaiian shirt or fluoro polo. People got into the spirit of it, and looking around the room now there’s just the ugliest polo shirts and Hawaiian shirts you’ve ever seen, but that says everything about Hendo. There were no suits or somber dark clothes, just a celebration of colour.

“There were moments of sadness as people recalled great memories. But the overall feeling of the day was fun and a celebration of a great life,” said Glenn Daniel.