Former Baylor journalism professor David McHam mans the telephones
at the Tribune-Herald on a late Friday in the fall of 1967.
A MENTOR FOR ALL SEASONS
By Bob Vickrey
Waco Tribune-Herald, November 20, 2011
The words handwritten in bold red ink above the draft of my first news story simply said: “You’ve buried the lead. Let me know when you find it.”
That was my formal introduction to Baylor journalism professor David McHam in my inaugural course in the department in 1966. After discovering the weathered document in my memorabilia drawer recently, I realized there was almost as much red ink on the first page as the black typeface from the venerable Royal typewriter used to create the story.
Professor McHam played the tough taskmaster for his new students, but his toughness helped me find the lead line which should have been at the very beginning of my faux-news story written specifically for his class that first semester. That would be the first of many lessons McHam would pass along to me, and to his flock of greenhorn wannabe journalists, both then, and in succeeding decades.
I was unable to attend the event held recently on campus to celebrate his 50th year since coming to Baylor with the late Dave Cheavens in 1961. More than 250 former and present students, friends, and colleagues from various schools where McHam had taught, assembled in the Barfield Drawing Room on the Baylor campus last month to salute the man who had influenced countless lives over the span of half a century.
During Cheavens and McHam’s tenure, the Baylor journalism department grew in its prestige and outreach, ultimately gaining a national reputation for the quality of graduates it sent into the marketplace.
Political columnist and satirist Molly Ivins once wrote: “If you get a kid who did well under McHam, you’ve got a lead-pipe cinch for a good reporter. (His) students are just a breed apart; they come with a seriousness of purpose and sense of fairness that McHam somehow inculcates by means that remain mysterious.”
McHam has always believed in his calling in molding careers one student at a time. This modest man has always sacrificed his time and energy while showing selflessness in his dedication toward his fledgling pupils.
Arriving late in the department, I certainly never represented one of McHam’s star students, and had only a short newspaper stopover before being seduced by the book publishing business. I spent my adult working life in sales, marketing, and the promotion of other writers’ works.
Even though I never became an award-winning reporter, or the managing editor of a major American newspaper, like several of my classmates did, I always felt the respect and admiration from David in my career choice. In fact, I spoke to a couple of his classes about the publishing business. He may have wanted me to help broaden their horizons, and possibly plant that early seed of envisioning their own book in future years.
During the planning of this tribute to McHam, some of us finally realized that many of his students have now retired, but he is still fully engaged in his teaching career at the University of Houston.
After I left the publishing business in 2008, I began attempting to resurrect a writing career that had lain dormant for almost 40 years. I wrote pieces for bookselling journals and an occasional newspaper column for local papers. After I became a contributing columnist for the Tribune-Herald, a note of support appeared magically on my computer screen one morning late last year from McHam saying: “What took you so long?”
That wasn’t the only note he sent. There was one that I hesitantly share at the risk of appearing immodest; however, the message best illustrates the selfless attention and generosity of spirit he offered to this prodigal former student who had wandered back to his writing roots.
After reading an op/ed column in this newspaper earlier in the year, he sent me an admiring note and praised the piece I had written. He said that my writing had improved, in part, from a lifetime of reading. God bless him! McHam was still coaching from the sidelines after all these many years.
I hadn’t realized that when I signed up for Professor David McHam’s Journalism 101 course as a young student, I was earning a lifetime warranty of stalwart support and gaining a patron saint and eternal advocate in the process.
That college tuition seemed rather expensive at the time, but any good broker would admit that the result turned out to be quite a solid return on investment.
Bob Vickrey is a freelance writer whose columns have appeared in several Southwestern newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.
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