| June 2008 | |
|
Bob Hamilton, TPA president 1977-78 Memorial Tributes TPA members e-mail us your tributes to Bob "For someone who rarely is at a loss for words, I find myself speechless, with tears welling up as I selfishly consider how sad I feel about losing Bob. My unselfish side, which is almost as rare as my being at a loss for words, reaches out to comfort Dolores, Kevin and Kari. During the days when I attended Texas Press Association Conventions regularly, one of the highlights of being there was to visit with Bob and his family. I will always cherish those times." Jim Gray -- "Our deepest sympathies go out to Karri and Kevin on the death of their father, Bob Hamilton." -- "Right before my first convention, a month after I was hired, Lyndell says to me, 'Oh. Damn. Almost forgot. You call the banquet manager at the hotel right now and tell him to make sure to stock 'CC & Seven' at all of our bar events. Bob Hamilton will have my ass if he can't get his Canadian Club and Seven-Up.' I got the same reminder before every convention until Lyndell retired." "For the first few years I worked for TPA, I'd get a call from Bob a couple days before the state track meet in early May. The call always went the same way. 'Ed-erd, Bob Hamilton up in Iowa Park. Things are busy as hell around here with graduation and all and I plumb forgot to find a place to stay in Austin for the track meet. Can you help me out? It's got to be a smoking room, Pod'na, and it's got to be close to the stadium.' I always found a smoking room in a hotel somewhere. After about five years, because I tend to be slow on the uptake, I started calling Bob in late February every year to ask him if he had booked his room yet. I'd say, 'Bob, this is Ed down in Austin. You get your hotel room yet?' And he'd say, "Pod'na, you know better than that.' " Ed Sterling -- Gholson: In the Nick of Time (June 12) Commentary By Nick Gholson, Wichita Falls Times Record News My name is not Owens or Brumley — not Hampton or Vaughan. And I am not related to anybody named Lunn. So I am definitely not in the business of planning funerals. But I do have one suggestion. Play “Dixie” one last time for Bob Hamilton on Friday. If you can’t get the Iowa Park High School marching band to stand outside the church and strike up a rendition of the Hawks’ fight song, then at least ask the organist to end the funeral with it. “Dixie” is considered politically incorrect to many people in this country. But Scoop Hamilton was not a guy who ever cared about being politically correct. To him, “Dixie” did not stand for slavery or bigotry. No, any time the band struck up that song, all he thought about was: “Go get ‘em, Mean Green.” When Hamilton died last Saturday morning, the Hawks lost one of their biggest fans. He bought the Iowa Park Leader — the town’s weekly newspaper — in 1969, the year the Iowa Park football team won the first of back-to-back state championships. And he bled green for the next 39 years. Was he a homer? Damn straight. And proud of it. While most of us in this business try to maintain a non-biased slant on the teams and games we cover, Hamilton never tried to hide his love for the home team. He was greener than Kermit the Frog. His Hawks never got beat. They just ran out of time. While guys like me sat in the press box protected from the elements, Hamilton roamed the sidelines with a camera and a spiral notebook — often fighting the cold wind and the rain. He was an old-time newspaper guy, who worked in the days of hot metal type. The kids who come to work here now have no clue what a glue pot or a pica pole is. Hamilton knew. He was old-school, black-and-white, two-pack-a-day newspaper guy who could crank out a 20-inch story, write the headline, count it to fit, set the type, build the page and make deadline. So to say a final goodbye to a guy like this is like losing an important piece of journalism history. You can buy new computers and new gadgets that make our jobs a whole lot easier. But Bob Hamiltons can never be replaced. What I really admired about Bob was his honesty. He never pulled punches with his columns. Hamilton didn’t like the Hotter’N Hell riding through Iowa Park, disturbing a summer Saturday morning without leaving a dime behind to show for it. He told the bike riders to get the hell out of town, and they did. Some people loved him. Others hated him. Hamilton understood that comes with the job. Some of my co-workers at this paper over the years hated him. That was understandable. To him, the Times Record News was the wicked witch to the east. Our stories about Iowa Park football were always in the Saturday paper. The Iowa Park Leader didn’t publish until the following Thursday. Scoop got scooped. Ah, but the preview story for every Friday game showed up in the Leader on Thursday and not in the wicked witch to the east until Friday. Scoop scooped us back. Years ago, our boss here decided we would go in direct competition with Hamilton’s paper. We began to insert a Monday supplement with Iowa Park news and sold ads to Iowa Park businesses. You could see the steam rising from 10 miles away. And you didn’t need GPS to track it right to 112 West Cash Street in Iowa Park. Not long after we started doing that, we had one of our “breakfast with the editors” in Iowa Park — right across the street from Hamilton’s office on Cash Street. One of our corporate know-it-all bosses, a transplant from Pennsylvania, stood up and gave the same boring speech he made in every small town. Somewhere in it, he said: “Since I have moved to Texas, I’m still not exactly sure what’s the difference between a Yankee and a damn Yankee.” Hamilton stood up, stared him down and said: “A damn Yankee is one who stays.” I laughed my you-know-what off. I wish I could have banged out Bob Hamilton’s obit on one of those old Royal typewriters. It would have been a fitting way to say goodbye to a real newspaper man. Strike up the band.
|
|