That Reminds Me . . .

Thirty-seven years ago, a chain-smoking, skinny young man with a deep voice that didn't seem to match the body from which it spoke, was stalking the halls of the McLennan County Courthouse in Waco, Texas, waiting for the jury to return a verdict in the first capital murder trial held in Texas after the Legislature passed what was then the new capital murder statute in response to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the old statute was unconstitutional. As news reporters often did at such times and under such circumstances, he joined in exchanging crude jokes with his colleagues, laughing out loud and creating echos in the cavernous rotunda on the third floor of the old Courthouse.

I was one of those news reporters loitering in the hallway outside the 54th District Court that day, and it was the first time I remember meeting Wayne Claiborne. At the time, Wayne was reporting for radio station WACO, and together with the always present Mr. Ball from Channel 10 (the passing years have caused me to forget his first name), the three of us yakked it up for some time as we waited for the jury to return with its verdict. Ultimately, the jury would return a verdict that would set in motion the execution of the Defendant, who previously had been convicted of the senseless and brutal shooting death of a convenience store clerk during a robbery which netted the Defendant less than $50.00.

A Facebook report informed me that Wayne passed away this week, reportedly penniless and almost forgotten. But not completely forgotten.

It is odd that only about two weeks ago, I was thinking about Wayne, Ball, and local radio reporter and later Justice of the Peace David Pareya, and all of the good times we had at the dawn of the disco era in Central Texas when we reported on the political
goings on in McLennan County and around the state.

Ultimately, the four of us went our separate ways. Wayne moved on to Channel 10, where he was a familiar face to thousands of Central Texans for several years. Ball finally retired, but I never found out what happened to him afterward. Pareya entered politics and was elected Justice of the Peace in West, a small Czech community just north of Waco. And I went to law school, and after graduation moved to Arlington.

We were young (except Ball, whom the rest of us thought was an old man in his 40s at the time), and we were idealistic and ambitious. We got to meet a lot of pretty famous people, and in reporting on the events of our time, we became somewhat minor celebrities, ourselves.

I always have thought that my years as a newspaper reporter were some of the best of my life. The job always was new and exciting. The times often were turbulent and filled with historically significant events (although we usually were unaware of the historical significance of the events at the time).

It is easy to forget those who briefly share the remote snapshots of our lives, and sometimes it takes the passing of one of those people to bring these almost forgotten pictures back into focus. I am grateful for my brief friendship with Wayne and for the times that we had together.

Wayne Claiborne may have died without a lot of worldly possessions, but he did not die forgotten.