Buddy was a mentor to me and so many of us sports-writer types that came through Tech. As I thought about Buddy this weekend, I remembered an incident that made me smile. I was interning for Buddy in the mid 70s, covering prep sports. As part of my job during football season I wrote previews of upcoming games, focusing on the week's opponents for RHS and Cedar Creek. I was an RA on the 8th floor of Caruthers Dorm, using my dorm room phone to make the calls to interview the head coaches of the opponents. Buddy gave me a phone number to charge the calls to. After a few weeks I got a call from Ruston attorney Bert Hogg. He wanted to know who I was and why I was charging phone calls to his house phone number. I was mortified, and told him Buddy had given me the number. … It was the early days of Lady Techster basketball, and Buddy had been working for weeks, helping Sonja out in compiling her media guide. He was calling her so often the number stuck in his head when I asked him what number to charge the phone calls to. It all got straightened out, and we had a good laugh about it.
Buddy was a treasure for Ruston, Lincoln Parish and Louisiana Tech. Rest in Peace, Buddy.