Maybe BJ columnist Bob Dyer should have LeBron James’ guy build a larger trophy room for Bob. Hell, by now he’ll need a second wing to his Copley home.

Bob’s latest awards are third places, both in general interest and in humor, Bob’s speciality, in this year’s National Society of Newspaper Columnists contest.

My long-time fellow survivor of Blue Room food, till my 1996 retirement, has authored three books in his spare time, one with former Cleveland Indians shortstop Omar Vizquel.

The list of awards, which Bob will provide for you at the drop of a hat, are pretty close to three score.

They might as well call the award as Best Columnist in Ohio from the Society of Professional Journalists chapters in Cincinnati, Cleveland and Columbus the Bob Dyer Award because he’s won it so many times. Seven years in a row, last time I checked. The Associated Press Society of Ohio habitually names him columnist of the year, too.

In 2008, the National Society of Professional Journalists named him the best columnist in the nation.

The list is too long for me to plunk it into this article. But if you want to see it, ask Bob: He keeps it handy in his desk drawer.

He was one of the lead writers for "A Question of Color," a year-long examination of racial attitudes in Akron that won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994. And was a Pulitzer nominee as a columnist, too. About the only award he hasn’t snared. But give him time. This guy is the best humor columnist this side of Dave Barry. He’s the Mark Twain of his day.

He’s pretty fierce on the golf course, too and, till age caught up to his, a mighty good baseball player.

Bob came to Ol’ Blue Walls from the Wooster Daily Record.

BJ readers I encounter during my 19 years of retirement from the BJ complain that the newspaper is a shell of its former self. But Bob Dyer is one part of it that is even better than he was when I was prowling the newsroom.