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Kaleb CauseyEditor-in-ChiEf

ormer Louisiana Tech journalism department head and Louisiana Political Hall of Fame inductee Wiley W. Hilburn Jr. died Jan. 16 at the Northern Louisiana Medical Center in Ruston at the age of 75.

He retired from Tech in 2009 as journalism professor emeritus. He served as head of the journalism department and director of the news bureau at Tech for 41 years.

For 50 years until his death, he was a columnist and edi-torial writer for Gannett newspapers in North Louisiana.

Dr. Dan Reneau, president emeritus of Tech, said Hilburn was one of his closest friends and was an adviser to Reneau at times.

“He had a profound impact on Tech,” Reneau said. “He was not only the head of the journalism department; he guided The Tech Talk and was the press officer for the university.”

At the age of 30 Hilburn took over the journal-ism department in 1968 under the late Tech Presi-dent F. Jay Taylor, who Hilburn often said gave him “a mandate to liberate The Tech Talk.”

During his time at Tech, Hilburn oversaw more than 600 graduates, supervised the production of

nearly 1,000 issues of The Tech Talk and turned the student newspaper into a nationally award-winning publication.

Dr. Reginald Owens, current chair of the journal-ism department, was a 1970 graduate under Hilburn and worked with him for many years before taking over for Hilburn after his retirement.

“More than anybody else in my life, Wiley Hilburn had the greatest impact on my professional development and my career in journalism,” Owens said. “His best gift to me was courage. Through his own actions and own words, and his approach to life and journalism, he showed me what courage was.”

During his undergraduate time as a columnist for The Tech Talk, Owens was an outspoken supporter of civil rights and black activism. Hilburn was

always a supporter of Owens and was criticized for it when a cross was burned in his yard one evening.“(Courage) was so important during the era when he taught me – a period that

demanded you stand up and be heard on the tough issues of the day, and more importantly that you be on the right side of the issue,” Owens said. “Of course, one can argue about what the right side is when it is happening. The final arbiter, however, is time. History has spoken. Wiley, you were right. Thank you.”

Hilburn’s vision of the school newspaper and the department paper was partly due to his own distinguished career as an editor, reporter, columnist and edito-rial writer. He worked for The (Shreveport) Times, The (Monroe) News-Star, the Associated Press, The Monroe Morning World and The Ruston Daily Leader. He also wrote three books during his journalistic career.

During this 50-plus-year career, he earned a reputation as a popular voice on Louisiana politics and is one of few journalists in the Louisiana Political Hall of Fame. In his roles as reporter, columnist and editorial writer, has interviewed every governor of the state of Louisiana since Earl K. Long.

In 2009, he was named the College of Liberal Arts Alumnus of the Year. Hil-burn received the 1993 Louisiana Tech Alumni Foundation Award for Outstand-ing Teacher. He served for many years on Tech’s Administrative Council and the Athletics Council.

Hilburn is a 1960 graduate of Tech with a bachelor’s in journalism. He received a master’s in journalism in 1962 from Louisiana State University.

He is survived by his wife, Kate Sartor Hilburn, and his three children, Greg, Kevin and Anne Marie.

Email comments to ktc013@latech.edu.

“His best gift to me was courage. Through his own actions and own words, and his approach to life and journalism, he showed me what courage was.”Dr. Reginald Owensjournalism department chair

A Tech Talk special section

It’s All RightBy Wiley Hilburn

W hen a stone hits a street light at night, the lamp flares brighter than ever before – like a star exploding – before dying. So it was with Dad the last full day of his 89 years of life. Through-

out the day before, he didn’t know me and wore a waxy expression that signaled the end.

Then came a blessed rally, a star exploding, and he recognized me and called out my name. “Bootsie” he said in a glad greeting.

He was hungry and ate. He was thirsty, and I gave him the water that al-ways had to be ice cold. He sought my hand and I his.

Then came a winter storm outside with sheet-tear-ing lightning that illuminated his room in a golden light. “Storm,” he said, and smiled. We both liked thunderstorms.

When he grew restless, I tightened up on the hand. “It’s all right, Dad,” I said.

He squeezed back, and repeated, “It’s all right.” Back and forth we went throughout the night. He finally fell into a peaceful sleep. “Turn me

loose,” he said, releasing my hand and closing his eyes.

I left him there feeling sure we had dodged yet another bullet. He was star-bright at 10:15 p.m. I drove home, content.

My telephone rang at 11:30. I knew the message from hospice before I answered. The star had flamed out.

But a merciful God had given us a last, great day. It was all right, after all.

I was maybe 16, the age of my grandson Steven. Dad had taken me fishing for the whole Saturday, something he had done all my life.

We had light, bamboo poles that Dad rigged with high-riding corks and baited hooks with trailers. “Let him take the whole thing down,” he told me, when my cork trembled.

Dad had stopped at a little grocery store and got us Vienna Sausages, a loaf of big Holsum Bread and a sack of Lay’s Potato Chips. It was a feast at Cap Barham’s pond off the Wesley Chapel Road.

He always iced down four Delaware Punches in a Rose Oil bucket. There was also a quart of water only for him. It had to be ice cold. Mother fixed it. We’d put the fish in the Rose Oil can, if we caught any, which didn’t matter. We were together, that was enough for both of us.

Suddenly the March wind, briskly Southern, parted a thick pine grove to our left – neat and clean, like you part your hair.

I was scared at sixteen, and this peculiar wind in the pines seemed sinister. Like something evil loose in the pine limbs.

I told Dad about it, pointing to the wind cleft in the pine thicket. His eyes followed my point. He never made fun of my fears.

“It’s all right, Bootsie,” he said. “It’s just the wind in the pine trees. “ He got up from his spot on the pond’s bank. “You want to walk through

that stand of pines?” I nodded. The wind was twisting the trees. I was still jumpy.

He took my hand. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll walk through the trees.”We did. I saw the peaceful slats of yellow sunlight on the brown pinestraw

floor. Like Dad said, it was just the wind. “It’s all right,” he said. I nodded and repeated: “It’s all right.”

February, 2003

REMEMBERING 1938-2014

wordsIn the of Wiley

Giving Thanks for the Pleasures of a Lifetime

By Wiley Hilburn

H e pushed the wheelchair to the window of the nursing home and looked into the amber light of autumn.“If I could just walk through those leaves one more time,” he said,

matter-of-factly, without self-pity.We all walk a tightrope, it seems to me, blind, unaware that a sudden wind

of tragedy can knock us off the wire – while we have been taking the journey for granted.

I wrote the piece below as a Thanksgiving editorial in 1974. I republish it almost every Thanksgiving – as much for myself as anybody else.

It is the season for Thanksgiving.It is the time, at a million tables, for giving

thanks. But will we remember the so-called small blessings that are taken for granted until they are gone – and yet, in aggregate, are the pleasures of a lifetime?

So we give thanks.For the early morning smell of late

autumn in North Louisiana, that hearty compound of hickory, woodsmoke and just-turned pasture soil;

For that full, swelling moment of wor-ship when one voice is many-blended in the singing of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God;”

For the soft, sweet talcum powder scent of a girlchild in deep sleep;

For gentle November sunshine and leaves in the wind;

For the solid knowledge of a job of work, of whatever kind, finished and done well;

For a firm hand on the shoulder when it was needed most;

For the laughter of boys in the backyard;For the drifting, delicious, melting moment

before sleep;For collard greens and candied yams and iced

tea sweetened in the pitcher;For the orange embers of the late afternoon, burning

out in a sea of light blue sky;For the unsolicited, unselfish, unexpected compliment from

somebody deeply respected and admired;For the quick, brilliant smile and the muttered, half-embarrassed “Thanks,

Dad”;For the one who listens, just listens;For a child’s blessing, simple and said out strongly over clasped hands;For water out of a fruit jar, taken down thirsty, and so cold it hurts to swal-

low;For somebody who cares, really cares, that your day was lonely and lost;For heart-meant forgiveness, giving and getting;For the lovely memory that never fades and, like the picture in the locker,

is always there for the looking;For the gap-toothed, incredibly generous smile proffered by the seven-

year-old at the school door;For blackgums and live oaks and flying pine straw;For a featherbed, homemade quilts, cold buttermilk and winesap apples;For God, and a day’s gift of life;For all that, and so much more.Thanksgiving.

-November, through the years

Wiley relaxes with his faithful pooch, Winston. Winston is named after former British Prime Minster Winston Churchhill, Wiley’s hero.

REMEMBERING 1938-2014

Messages from students, friends and colleagues

It was a righteous homegoing celebration for Wiley Wilson Hilburn Jr. at his be-loved First Presbyterian Church in Ruston. Friends, family and editors that he trained over the decades cried together, as we remembered our special teacher, mentor and friend.

(The real name of the church is the Pres-byterian Church of Ruston, but Wiley never recog-nized the changed name that resulted with the merger of two churches in 1988, so I am honoring my friend’s dogged commitment to First Presbyterian.)

Wiley, the once youthful newspaper wunderkind of North Louisiana, was suddenly gone from us at 75. He was a political observer and philosopher whose narratives of the region flowed like poetry.

He wrote so much that was memorable that it would be almost impossible to choose one quote to represent him, but the family chose well with this succinct sentence of summation:

“I know where I live, who I am and who I love.”For the journalism department at Louisiana Tech

there are only two eras — the one before Wiley Hil-burn, and the one that followed.

My studies straddled the two eras, and I can bear witness to the seismic eruptions that resulted.

Prior to Wiley’s arrival in 1968, The Tech Talk was anything but a student paper. A lot of the content was dedicated to faculty news, academic papers they had delivered, grants received and pronouncements from the administration.

As one of The Tech Talk’s editors, I had written something of an investigative piece my junior year that dealt with spending by the Student Government Association, and I was told by the department head before Wiley that it could run as a letter to the editor, but not as a news story.

Ruston, and the pleasant environs at Tech, from the quadrangle, to the Tonk, to the shade-draped walks and red brick backdrop of academic and resi-

dence buildings, comprised an idyllic universe that was some-how exempt from the tumult that had rocked the ’60s in most of America.

The Tech student body had been integrated in 1965, and there was other evidence of the changing times, but little of that was reflected in the Tech Talk.

Then Wiley arrived.I was most privileged to

be selected as the first Tech Talk editor of the Wiley era, based partly on my four years in the Marines, I imagine, and therefore older than the other students, with more life experi-ences to buttress my editorship. Wiley had the only permission he needed to empower the staff to publish a real newspaper —

he had the backing of F. Jay Taylor, the university’s president, who clearly had decided it was time to let a little change be injected into the sleepy campus.

We also had the good fortune to have a new offset press (I believe the first in North Louisiana) The pa-per had been printed on an old flat-bed press before.

We redesigned the paper with a new masthead, and our new motto sent a message to all: “The Stu-dent Voice of Louisiana Tech University.”

The result was a stunning advancement in print-ing, full of color and graphics that had not been seen before, and the new look gave some credibility to the rest that we did.

Our little staff was energized to work hard with the freedom that Wiley had provided us, and even at midnight you could generally find reporters and editors at work in the old Tech Talk office in the basement of Keeny Hall, not just editing or writ-

ing, but sitting around talking about the world of the university and its students and how the paper could tell those stories with depth and power.

The volcano of social and political issues that had bubbled beneath the surface erupted in the pages of the Tech Talk with news stories, columns and editorials that addressed the big issues of the day and brought Louisiana Tech much more into the real world of 1968 and 1969.

It will be difficult for some to realize that it was not until the Wiley era that the first byline by an African-American, Reginald Owens, a columnist who hailed from the nearby town of Grambling, would appear in the Tech Talk.

All these years later, Dr. Owens now is chair of the journalism department at Tech, the position that Wiley held with such distinction for so long. Isn’t that just amazing. To me it is a thrilling result of history.

Reggie and I were among the first Tech students to understand the great gift that we received when Wiley arrived as our teacher, mentor and friend.

Each succeeding class came to know Wiley Hil-burn in that way, and his death has left hundreds of us feeling a personal and professional loss.

When Wiley arrived at Tech to head the journal-ism program he was but 30, and only four years older than me. We were young then, and fearless. All things were possible, and we pushed the limits to do the thing that journalism and newspapers do best in helping inform the communities that we serve. Together we fought many dragons, and slayed a few.

The Tech Talk became relevant, even important. Wiley suffered the slings and arrows of criticism in his hometown and from some in the faculty. A cross was burnt and threats were made, but he, and we, endured.

It was a magical time, and one that not even the death of this fine man, can erase. But God, we will miss him.

Stan Tinervice president and executive editor of the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss.

Try to find another one like him. Even one in the same ballpark. You never will. All his quirks – losing his car, wrecking his car, piling up parking tickets, food on his lapel, misplacing papers, remaining unconvinced we’d won WWII yet, his drinking back in the day, his being late, his lack of anything close to a sense of direction – every fault was endearing. He was each of us, only better. If he was your friend, you did not have one more loyal or sincere. If he told you he loved you, he did. And not just when things were good, but all the time.

Teddy AllenLouisiana Tech University Communications

Wiley was always able to unlock the key to an indi-vidual student’s talents, usually through his intensive creative writing class. But I was one of those students without a true direction. He called me in from The Tech Talk office one day and said, “Morrow, here’s the deal. You’ve got talent but you’re just not applying yourself. You need to decide if this is what you want to do. So I’m going to help you. For the rest of your time here, you are going to either get an ‘A’ or an ‘F’ in my classes. Nothing else.” Knowing how hard it was for my family to send me to college, I opted for the ‘A’ route and have been happy with that decision ever since.

Kathy Morrow SpurlockExecutive Editor of The (Monroe) News-Star

Wiley is the reason that I am doing what I do today. He was my mentor, but even more than that he was my friend. He taught me how to make my living using words and yet I struggle to find the right ones to express the influence he had on me. What an incredible impact he had on my life and so many others.

Wiley loved Louisiana Tech athletics. Ironically enough, the last conversation I had with Wiley was the Saturday before he passed away. He called me from ICU to find out what time the Lady Techster basketball game

started. Typical Wiley. He didn’t want to miss listening to a Tech game. I will miss knowing that win or lose, Wiley is listening and that I will get a phone call from him the next day wanting to discuss the game. It was therapeutic for both of us.

Malcolm ButlerLouisiana Tech Associate AD / Media Relations

I was deeply saddened to hear of Wiley’s passing and share the heavy heart that the entire Tech Family has today. Wiley was such an important part of our institu-tion, for so many years, and made an indelible impres-sion on every student and colleague he came in contact with. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Wiley’s family and to the many who called him “friend.” He will be sorely missed, but never forgotten.

Les GuiceLouisiana Tech President

We were certainly the best of friends. We fought terribly about journalism, though. We fought over him putting in mass commu-nication ethics classes instead of accounting 101 and 102.” Most journalists don’t know diddly about accounting and finance, even though the majority of news stories involving government, locally, statewide or nationally involves money. He contributed greatly to Louisiana journalism. There are more of his students who have led newspapers than any journalism program in Louisiana.

John HaysFormer publisher of the weekly Morning Paper

1968 Tech Talk file photo

REMEMBERING 1938-2014

A window into WileyAfter serving 41 years at Tech, Hilburn leaves behind a treasure trove of memories

Right: Wiley is deep in

thought while editing a copy of

The Tech Talk.

Below: At the end of every

quarter, Wiley would treat The

Tech Talk staff to dinner at a local eatery,

such as this one at Sundown

Tavern.

Above: Wiley Jr. in his youth spent much time with his father, Wiley Sr.

Above: Tech President Emeri-tus Dan Reneau, right, hosted Wiley’s retirement reception in 2009at the Marbury Alumni Center.

Left: This is the signature Wiley work position at his desk.Above: Wiley enjoys some down time with his colleagues at The (Shreveport) Times.