Everything I am professionally I owe to Terry Williamson.
He hired me in 1994, stayed patient with his fiery, error-prone prima donna and served as a role model for what it meant to be in community journalism.
Like Ted Battles before him, Terry wasn’t just a sports reporter; he was the face of the sports department. And Terry understood what that meant. He didn’t try to make his name off the actions of the people he covered. That is not what a good community newspaperman does. He didn’t put his brand over the brand of the Reporter-Telegram. Again, community journalism doesn’t require a hot take. Terry knew that.
Terry often put his ego aside and served the kids and coaches who he covered. Service might be the most appropriate word. To know Terry was to realize he was more than an award-winning sports journalist. In fact, he was a better person and exemplary family man. Though Terry would often kid that his wife had their baby girls during the week, which allowed him to still cover football on Friday night, there was not a more devoted husband or prouder papa. Being a newspaper man was a profession and not an obsession.
As the First Baptist family will likely remind us at the celebration of his life today, Terry was Christ-centered in the way he lived his life and the way he loved his wife June and his girls, Shane and Regina. Pastor Darin Wood will tell us more about Terry’s faith. Again, Terry was a role model there as well.
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There aren’t many great memories of my first years in Midland that don’t involve Terry. When there was a big game, Terry allowed me to come along for the ride. Those nights etched in my memory include my first Lee-Permian game in 1995, when Ratliff Stadium was packed and there was an honest-to-goodness “Field of Dreams” line of cars (headlights blazing and all) extending for miles.
There was Midland High’s trip to the 1998 state basketball tournament in Austin. Sure, it was historic that the Bulldogs won the 5A championship. However, I also will always remember the night that Terry and I ate so much at a Pappasito’s Mexican Cantina that we actually begged a member of the wait staff to take our plates because it hurt our stomachs just to look at the leftovers.
I remember Terry holding court on the east-facing dock at the old Reporter-Telegram building. I remember sharing a two-person box at the old Midland Memorial Stadium – arguably the worst press accommodations in all of West Texas. I remember eating at Whataburger on nights when it was just us working in the office. I remember Terry being off when the pages and pages of local bowling results hit the Sports Department inbox. Perks of being the boss, I suppose.
But most of all, I remember that man who didn’t know me from Adam, but was willing to meet with me as I dropped off resumes in newsrooms across West Texas in early August 1994. After telling me about what it meant to work at a daily newspaper, he said we’ll see if something comes up. Three months later, he called me at my Texas A&M dorm room to ask if I wanted to join the team on the following January. Just like that I would graduate with a job secured.
You see, when Terry added me to a staff that included Bill Petitt and Amy McDaniel, I became the lucky one. He was setting me up for success and the opportunity to work in West Texas’ best city. Twenty-seven years later, that call was still the most significant moment of my professional life.
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Terry is the third member of my Mount Rushmore of all-time Reporter-Telegram staffers. Like fellow members Ted Battles and Ed Todd, Terry produced the content that readers in Midland made part of their day for a combined 100-plus years.
The three represented about what was great about the community newspaper. They knew their audience, and their readers depended on them. They didn’t worry about page views or visits. They just wanted the story they were working on to be a perfect description of what they experienced.
Terry, here’s hoping you have already had a first staff meeting with Battles, Todd and other Reporter-Telegram alumni like Gary Ott and Jim Servatius.
Terry, here’s knowing you are finally with your Jesus. That, I have to think, is a certainty.
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