I usually reserve this space for music history updates and sports musings, but I am going to take a more serious tone today. I just found out that the man who gave me my start in professional journalism, Rick Hinton, has passed away from a heart attack this past weekend.
There are a few people I owe for the now more than 30 years I have spent working in some form of journalism, which now extends to newspapers, magazine, and Internet content. My high school advisers Davelyn Leister at Klein High School and especially the great Dan Diaduin at John Glenn High School in Westland, Michigan, who instilled the initial passion for the profession in me and allowed me the first opportunities to put pen and typewriter to paper. Then, there are several college professors at the University of Houston, most notably Ted Stanton, Garth Jowett, and Campbell Titchener (who also recently passed away), who helped me develop the skills to create good copy, both my own and that of others. Later on, there was Gary Reber, who saw something in me good enough to bring hundreds of miles to eventually become news editor at his little newspaper in Nebraska, and Emily-Sue Sloane, who gave me my chance to work in New York (OK – Long Island), even if only for a brief time.
However, it was Rick Hinton who started me on this journey – at least professionally. I was still a freshman at UH in the spring of 1982 when I saw an ad on the jobs bulletin board for a part-time job working in the sports department at the Houston Post. Bells starting ringing in my head as I saw the possibilities of my long-standing passion for sport to be able to combine with my hoped-for profession. I interviewed with Rick in his office on the second floor of the Post’s castle-like building and, although I thought it went well, went about a month without hearing back and assumed I was deemed not ready. However, around the first of April, I received a call from Rick asking if I was still interested in the position. It seems one of the staffers had gotten mad or stupid and rewrote some of the copy on the agate page so that it said that a college tennis tournament took place at Bumblefuck Municipal Stadium in Beaumont. Needless to say, that person was let go and I was given his job.
That started me on my journey at the post being, as the late, great Bob Claypool would say, a “sports clerk” (it wasn’t just me – he referred to all positions on the copy desk as “sports clerks,” including the layout, rim, and wire editors. For the first couple of years, I was the youngest person on staff at the paper, even younger than some of the copy personnel. In the sports department, I was the youngest person there for the first five or so years I was there. As such, I always felt that Rick took on a sort of mentorship of me, especially after I quit school to work 40-50-60 hours a week at the Post during the mid-80s working as one of the agate editors. Whenever I had questions, he was happy to put up with me. Once we moved to the fourth floor of the building, the sports desk was set up in a way that he and I (and Richard Dean and Jim Molony) sat next to him on a daily basis. As Pete Radowick has mentioned, he had a quick of contorting himself sometimes while at the sports copy desk, putting one leg up on the desk while sometimes putting one of his hands behind his neck. My guess is that it was a stress reliever, since we had our fair share of stress back in those days. He also chain-smoked unfiltered Lucky Strikes like he needed them to breathe. I am sure there were some day I saw him chain smoke three or four packs in a given afternoon and evening. He had given them up by the end of his tenure there and lived another 30 years after that, so I a guessing he gave them up for good.
When the Canadians came in to take over the newspaper from the Hobby Family, Rick soon left the Post. I myself ended up staying there nearly 11 years, making lifelong friends and memories along the way. Anyone who has worked at the Post (and most newspaper in general) know that much of the time was tumultuous, especially given the number of ownership and style changes that we went through.
I lost track of Rick after he left the Post, although I do know that he moved to South Dakota for a time sometime soon afterward. When I learned of his passing today, I also learned that he had moved back to Texas and was living in Kerrville at the time of his death. I always enjoyed working for Rick. He was my boss and could act like a boss on most occasions, but he always had time for me, even if only for a brief moment. I owe him a lot and thank him eternally for giving me that first opportunity. Rest in peace, Richard W. Hinton.
The Journalism Gypsy 