As I look across the newsroom on this beautiful Monday afternoon, I see a lot of familiar faces. Obviously, I work with these people.
But suddenly _ sparked by an e-mail _ I begin to think of the people who worked in the sports department here at The Eagle 31 years ago, when I was hired.
The e-mail comes from Reid Hanley, who has remained a close friend through the years even though he left for the Chicago Tribune 28 or 29 years ago. Reid still works for The Trib.
Rod Smith was in charge of our high school sports coverage when I was hired, so I worked closely with him. I don’t know where Rod is now.
Mal Elliott is the brilliant man who made the decision to hire me. It was, Mal has told me many times, the best decision he has ever made. Or maybe that was worst. One of the two.
Russ Corbitt was covering Wichita State then. He worked here for years before retiring and moving to Arizona a few years back.
Bill Hodge was the Eagle columnist, as he had been for a long time. Unfortunately, Bill passed away a couple of years ago.
Our outdoors writer was Bill Billeau. Now, Bill didn’t write outdoors, he wrote about the outdoors. He passed away some time back.
Tony Jimenez covered state colleges and junior colleges. He then became the journalism teacher at Derby High, my alma mater, before retiring a couple of years ago.
Dale Mullen worked for the old Beacon, as did Bob Stewart. Dale, I know, has passed away. Bob is still around somewhere.
Gary Karr had already been here 10 years when I was hired. And he’s still here, one of our desk stalwarts. Gary has always worked as hard as anyone I know. All of those high school statistics we run don’t just appear. Gary chases them down, going to all extremes to do so.
John Murphy covered the Big Eight and did a lot of desk work. John became a very good friend and is someone I still keep in touch with, though not as much as I should considering he still is right here in Wichita.
I’m sure I’m forgetting people. It was a long time ago. But it’s fun to think about the old days in this business, when I was just getting started. And about the people who helped me.