Saluting a mentor that left us too soon

If it wasn’t for former Daily American Republic sports editor Kyle Smith, I probably would’ve never become a journalist.

It was Kyle and former DAR editor Stan Berry that gave me my first newspaper job in July 2000. Despite the fact I had zero newspaper experience — and indeed, had never even taken a journalism class, not even in high school — they took a chance on me and hired me here as a sports writer. And I’m glad they did.

As many of you know, we lost Kyle last weekend when he was in Springfield to cover the MSHSAA Class 2 Show-Me Showdown. After covering the Ellington girls basketball team’s semifinal win last Friday morning, he went back to his hotel room and filed his story on that game. It ended up being the last story he wrote.

I owe Kyle a lot, and not just because he and Stan took a chance on a 26-year-old kid without experience and, quite frankly, without many social skills at the time.

First of all, Kyle and Stan showed a lot of patience with me while I quite literally learned on the job — and I needed a lot of patience. Not many people would have done it, but they did. Believe me, I tried that patience more than a few times.

Second, I learned a lot from Kyle as a writer. When I first came on board here at the DAR, Kyle’s two primary beats were covering Poplar Bluff Mules football, Three Rivers Raiders basketball and Three Rivers Lady Raiders basketball. And he did an admirable job of covering all of them, so it’s little surprise that I imitated his style of writing.

Kyle knew how to tell a story when he wrote. He knew how to write an interesting lead and he knew how to inject play-by-play without overdoing it and making the story boring. More than that, he knew how to interact with coaches, parents and athletes — and coach young writers like me.

From those humble beginnings more than 20 years ago, I’ve had the privilege of covering everything from Little League to the National Football League as a sports writer, while also crossing paths with many other people on the general news side of the ledger. Most of all, I’ve had many memorable experiences and made many friends I would have never made otherwise.

Thank you Kyle. I owe you, man.

Mike Buhler is a staff writer for the daily American republic. Contact him at mbuhler.dar@gmail.com.