Thankfully, Oklahoma State People Get It and We Remember Even Though It's Never Enough
In the course of life and learning, which is a big part of what life is, I’ve come to know that nothing makes any of us feel as inadequate as loss. I can’t begin to recount how many times that I’ve tried to comfort somebody that has experienced profound loss. I’m talking about losing someone so important and someone that you love as much as life itself. All of us in the Oklahoma State community experienced that on Jan. 27, 2001.
We all best see things through our own eyes. That is where there is more clarity. I do invite you to read the coverage of the 20th year (I refuse to use the word anniversary) remembrance of the plane crash that killed 10 members of the Oklahoma State University basketball family that is in the Tulsa World. Their coverage including Jimmie Tramel’s story on the love story of Karen and Will Hancock, the first-person story of Andie Hancock (Will and Karen’s daughter) and the column by Bill Haisten on still struggling to process the plane crash and loss is all outstanding journalism.
Every story I’ve written on this topic has caused me to write through tears and always caused me to second guess if what I wrote was even redeeming in any aspect.
I still remember often. I remember every time I think of the College Football Playoff because I see the head of the CFP Bill Hancock. I’ve known Bill since my pup days as a Channel 4 reporter going on the Big Eight Skywriters Tour when Bill was an associate commissioner in the Big Eight. I think about his grief and the will he had to deal with it by riding his bike across the country and writing a book on the process, Riding with the Blue Moth.
I remember anytime I think about or cover Oklahoma State soccer because of Karen, the head coach of the program initially and Will’s wife. She has done such an outstanding job combining her professional life, dealing with her loss, and raising an outstanding daughter in Andie.
I remember every time I do a football game on radio for the Cowboy Network. I remember standing by Dave Hunziker when he called Janis Teegins right before he did his first Cowboy football game at Southern Miss. He told Janis he was thinking of Bill and he hoped he could do Bill honor with his call. I think of our former producer and engineer Joe Riddle, who I know grieves his friend Kendall Durfey, who made that trip instead of Riddle.
I always think of Steve Buzzard, my friend and former Oklahoma State Director of Media Relations and how professional he was at the Stillwater Airport the night it happened. I think of and know how his heart was aching and still does for his friends. I think about Oklahoma State University as a whole, how it grieved, but triumphantly how it thrives and does it’s best as a community to help those that lost so much.
Loss is a terrible thing. You never get over it. However, if you do remember and you do your best to help those that still ache, then there is virtue in that. No matter how inadequate we may all feel, we have to keep working to give comfort. It is what makes us human.
Please read the excellent coverage in the Tulsa World.