ATLANTA — What do you get when combine Beats, blades and brightness? You get Kevin Randolph.
“They call me — I’m a fixture — Mr. Beltline,” Randolph told Spectrum News’ Bree Driscoll. “They say if they don’t see Kevin on the Beltline, you haven’t experienced the Beltline.”
Both the Atlanta Beltline and Kevin are quite the experience.
Almost every day, Randolph straps up his Rollerblades, turns up his Beats headphones and heads out onto the 22-mile loop of historic railroad corridors known as the Beltline.
He skates and sings for hours, greeting friends and strangers along his way.
“We’ll be doing ‘Milkshake’ together with Apple Bottom jeans,” Randolph said. “So they expect to be dancing with me and singing with me.”
But Randolph wasn’t always the outgoing dynamo you see today.
Growing up the youngest of five children in Chicago, he gave off a much different vibe.
“I was extremely small, extremely shy, very nerdy. I was like Urkel,” he said, referring to the character from the TV sitcom “Family Matters.” “Everything but the glasses with the tape on the them.”
At 18, Randolph joined the Navy, working on submarines.
“I was on the ones with the missiles,” he said. “So we were under water for 110 days, intentionally.”
Randolph is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. While in the military, he received a bachelor’s degree in computer science, and later a master’s in math education. He sold houses and taught advanced electronics. All along, there have been hints that he’s an entertainer at heart.
“I did ballet in college,” he said. “ … I was a tall gymnast. I did gymnastics for about 10 years. I sang in choirs and solos.”
Randolph had been going out to the Beltline to skate for years. But in 2020, his daily routine shifted from just being about exercise to becoming a movement of positivity.
“After corona(virus), I started singing and waving at people to bring them out of their comatose state,” he said.
At first, many people were wary.
“They’re kind of holding back and just kind of do a double take,” he recounted.
Fast-forward to today, when Kevin can hardly get 10 steps in without an interaction. He’s become a local icon and a favorite on social media, with thousands of followers, millions of likes, and even a sponsorship from a local restaurant chain.
“I expected a little check for like a thousand dollars, and it was bigger than that, guys,” Randolph said. “I won’t say what, but it was bigger than that.”
Also big: his dreams of spreading positivity.
“It’s not going to kill you to say hello to someone,” Randolph said. “It’s just not. You don’t have to like them.
“See the smile in her face. Just wave,” he said while waving at a passerby. “And it’s infectious.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumlocalnews.com ’
