Ron Hadfield is a long-time friend who was my student editor on the Abilene Christian University newspaper, The Optimist, in 1977. Ron recently was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ACU Athletic Hall of Fame ceremony that I was privileged to attend.
I showed up on ACU’s doorstep in 1976 as a transfer student with a dream to some day become a newspaper sportswriter, but with virtually no writing experience.
To say that I was a raw talent would be overstating my ability and potential. I didn’t have a clue.
Ron likes to tell the story that on the first assignment he sent me out on, I turned in some terrible copy and proudly showed him the quotes I made up.
I deny the accuracy of his memory.
But he was a patient editor who helped me begin to find my way as a writer.
I didn’t know the intricacies of sports — especially basketball — as well as I thought I did, and Ron helped me learn strategies such as the double high stack offense used by ACU men’s basketball coach Willard Tate.
As we shared both the Optimist newsroom and numerous ACU classes, Ron became a good friend. We each had a keen interest in sports, baseball in particular, and we traveled to Arlington, Texas, with our mutual friend, Scott Kirk, to catch Texas Rangers games on several occasions.
Ron and I even traveled to Kingsville, Texas, together to watch the 1977 ACU-Texas A&M-Kingsville game, spending the night on the North Padre Island beach.
Our 1977-’78 Optimist staff of perhaps a dozen people became a team of close friends who spent late nights getting the paper out and often playing touch football well after midnight on the ACU campus. We were popular with campus security.
Optimist staff members were all regulars at the home of Dr. Charlie Marler, who led ACU’s Journalism and Mass Communications department for many years both as professor and chair. I completed a guided study sportswriting course one summer where we met at the Marler home instead of on campus. Dr. Marler passed away in 2022.
Anyway, I graduated in August of 1978, while Ron went on to serve a second year as editor of The Optimist before graduating in 1979. I’ve never let our friendship totally lapse, even if communication was only through occasional emails or texts.
After his graduation, Ron briefly worked in private industry back in his home state of Michigan, then returned to ACU to lead the university’s marketing efforts.
For the next 40-plus years, virtually every written word, advertisement, branding strategy and logo created on behalf of Abilene Christian University was either produced or led by Ron. He was founding editor of the university’s fabulous alumni publication, ACU Today, and led the school’s development of its online presence with the emergence of the Internet.
Ron wrote many cover stories for ACU Today, as well as blog posts and news releases that captured some of the school’s iconic moments over the past four decades.
The only person to be twice named the university’s Staff Member of the Year, Ron was named ACU editor emeritus, senior writer and university historian in 2022.
So, when Dr. Cheryl Mann Bacon invited me to sit at her table at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, I didn’t hesitate to say ‘yes.’ Also at the table were fellow former Optimist staff members Scott Kirk (and his wife, Nancy) and Corliss Hudson Englert (along with her husband, Brad), as well as Peggy Marler, Dr. Marler’s wife of 67 years.
Dr. Bacon also was part of our Optimist group, although she was working on her master’s degree by the time I landed on campus.
It was an awesome evening in a banquet hall setting among about 200 or so ACU alums who watched as Ron was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and five former athletes were inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame.
Although I’ve never had the opportunity to experience any of ACU’s class reunions, this was the best of reunions for me.
Thanks for the invitation, Cheryl.
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