The People who shaped a Year

For me it always comes down to a census of the people.

As a curious, if sometimes too cynical, reporter, taking stock of the people who have shaped your year is too often a case of counting who is gone.

For example, John Mattox, who was described in his obituary as a world traveler and businessman, was to me a great character, a man with endless stories and who still managed to seem like a regular guy despite life’s experiences.

Richard Carroll the same way. Here was a man who had made a nice living, settled nicely near Mexico Beach, had a great sense of taste and community, but it is his unflagging devotion to the arts, even as he became ill, that will stick with me.

I will greatly miss Dr. Bob King.

He was irascible, principled and believed that less government, especially in Gulf County, might not be such a bad thing.

He could come in this office and rail, but he also could come in the next day and sit down, with a smile, hat on knee, and have a jovial chat.

It is hard to believe he is gone, given the enjoyment he seemed to derive from life, treating us to a home cooked meal, being just a good sounding board – though he sometimes put my own cynical bones to shame.

Dr. David Langston’s gravelly, booming voice will likely reside in my head until my dying day.

A man always on the go, always a phone planted to his ear or mouth, he was also opinionated and often gruff – maybe there is something deeper I should comprehend here about my interpersonal relationships.

But in so many ways, Dr. Langston, no other greeting from my mouth, was another person I looked up to in awe as I covered his life’s work, a tough tightrope in this business.

He was a force of nature and that nature was children, providing the extended hand that had been his to reach for as a youngster after his parents died.

He could simply talk you into anything if it meant helping his kids, and if he couldn’t talk you into it the first time, he would just keep coming.

I remember a conversation I had with former Speaker of the House Allan Bense about Dr. Langston some time ago and when the discussion turned to Dr. Langston’s tenacity, I could sense Bense recoil and nervously laugh.

I imagine that is how Dr. Langston was on the basketball floor, what made him great, a will to never give an inch, to press the attack and after his basketball career he attacked on behalf of children.

His was a singular focus I have rarely encountered and I will always be the better person for having Dr. Langston cross my path.

Fortunately, an accounting of the year is not entirely counting those you have lost.

I feel fortunate to have made the acquaintance of Greg Cole, who with cadaver dog Maximus, went over to Iraq to provide closure for the families of soldiers.

He doesn’t much like the spotlight, but Capt. Cole, as with so many from the Wewahitchka Search and Rescue team or volunteer firefighters in this county, is willing to perform sometimes dangerous and horrific work, understanding the outcome could be awful, with honor and professionalism I so admire.

And finally there are the kids of the Port St. Joe High School Odyssey of the Mind team that won state and ended up second in the world in their category.

Smart kids, sure, but also kids with a sense of a humor and purpose at a young age that is both hard to describe and to duplicate, kids that provide solace concerning the generations to follow behind the Bob Kings and David Langstons of this world.