God does everything for a reason. He called John back because John had done everything he was supposed to do on this earth. He accomplished his mission in just 32 years whereas it takes most of us much longer than that. At some time - maybe not tomorrow, or next year, or in 20 years, but at some time - it will be revealed to us why God chose to take John at this time.

I had just seen him Tuesday, the night before he died, at the Garland/Sachse girls basketball game. We were taking turns impersonating a local sports radio personality, which we frequently did, and we laughed about it a lot. John loved sports and loved taking pictures of sports - in fact, on our road trips we took, almost all of our discussions revolved around sports. Sports of any kind. He rarely talked about his personal life - mostly we talked about sports. One time I showed him how on MLB.com he could look up the day's highights of games and watch them, and he thought that was so cool, because he didn't know he could do that. On the way back from Waco, he pointed out Marlin High School on the highway to me - Marlin being the team that shocked Ennis about 4 years ago in football. I couldn't believe THAT SMALL SCHOOL fielded a football team that beat Ennis. John just had an amazing knowledge of football, but particularly of Texas High School football. His two favorite teams were his alma mater, Allen, and of course, Garland. He died just a few days before those two teams were to play in back to back state semifinal games at Texas Stadium. We like to think he was watching through the hole in the roof.

On our trip to College Station, we went to Wal-Mart late at night and sifted through the masses of A&M shirts and other maroon items. We eventually found a small rack of UT T-shirts and we did what any self-respecting football fan in Texas would have done. WE BOUGHT UT T-SHIRTS. THANK YOU! John was a big UT fan. On our trip to Austin, we went to a UT baseball game and I think John enjoyed it more than any of us.

Most of all, John loved Garland High School sports. He was a huge fan of all of them and he knew all the players and coaches. He was well aware of Garland's history. In June when Garland won that state championship in softball, he could not hide his excitement. That was all we talked about for about the next 12 hours. All these players and coaches as well as writers and other photographers didn't just know John, but they respected him and his passion for sports and photography. He was able to combine the two things he loved the most and make a career out of it, which is truly a rare opportunity. They say it isn't really work if you love what you do. I believe that taking pictures of sports was not work to John.

His favorite sports sound byte was the famous Jim Mora rant. On one of our trips, I downloaded it and we played it over and over again and we laughed for a long time. PLAYOFFS? DON'T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!

We'll miss you, John. Few journalists that I've been around possess your passion for the sports and athletes that you covered. You did what you loved and you did not waste a moment of life. You were an inspiration to all your colleagues and we will never forget that. Until we meet again. . .

Brian Honea
Sports Writer
The Garland News