Thanks for the memories, John Inman

I first met John Inman in the summer of 1986 at a Dallas Cowboys game at Texas Stadium.

John was a veteran sports writer back then and I was just making my debut in the profession. Somebody took our picture together as two sports writers from Heavener and it appeared in the Heavener Ledger.

Since then, I have gotten to know John better. He is, without doubt, one of the good guys and in my various publishing platforms, nobody has helped me more over the years.

So it is with a more than a little bit of sadness that John’s Time-Out column is missing from the Journal. After some 200 columns and blogs, John informed me last week that it was his last column.

For the Journal, it was his 42nd column, ranging from Heavener football to the Yankees, his favorite professional baseball team. Since he started writing his weekly column for the Journal, the only time he has missed was when he had surgery on both eyes.

John has decided to devote his time to writing his upcoming book on the history of Heavener football and I am sure it will be a project all the old Wolves will enjoy.

I can’t fault him for his decision, but instead want to thank John for his contributions. There are so many people who have helped over the years and I don’t want to name them here because I would leave somebody out, but John has helped more than anybody.

He always passes on a kind word and his stories were never about how the sky was falling, but instead were always with a positive slant, even his Yankees stories.

Hopefully John and his Time-Out column will return sometime in the future, but until then, I thank him and wish him good luck with the book and in life.