Ryan Rendleman was the first student I met after becoming interim director of the School of Journalism. The DE had sent him over to interview me.
Ryan didn't just ask questions. He wanted me to put him in touch with associates he could interview. I made the mistake of giving him the name of Kevin Horrigan, a former colleague with a sardonic wit. Horrigan told Ryan I had spent a decade fighting over a $63 cable bill. This was true, but I was shocked - just like other interviewees often are shocked - when the anecdote about the cable bill turned up in the first graph.
At first I wasn't pleased. But as the day wore on, Ryan's story looked better and better as people stopped me in the hall to comment admiringly about how I had taken on the cable industry. Ryan had an eye for a good anecdote even if I didn't.
Over the ensuing two years, I had the good fortune to have Ryan in a number of classes, in addition to seeing him at the DE. Ryan was a wonderful young man. He was smart but not pretentious. He was quick with the irreverent comment, but he wasn't cynical. He could write and shoot and put his work on the Internet. He was so good I suggested this month that my wife hire him for her new news site in St. Louis.
If Ryan thought a course wasn't teaching him much, he'd say so. In fact, he did say so just last week when I met with graduating seniors. I say these nice things about him not because he is dead, but because they are true.
Most recently Ryan was working on a story on the Ozark General Store in the Shawnee Forest. He'd come to class remarking about the store's tasty hot ham and cheese sandwiches. I kept telling him he had to get me one. A couple of weeks ago he showed up in my office, hot ham and cheese sandwich in hand and his characteristic grin on his face.
By a stroke of fate, I was driving down Highway 127 Tuesday on my way to Carbondale. A flagger stopped me at a construction site. Over the hill I saw smoke. Then the ambulances, police cars and a fire engine arrived. I didn't know my friend had died just over the horizon. When I found out at a party of the journalism school, professors cried and came to the DE to be with the students. We stood outside in a circle remembering, through tears and laughs, how much we loved the way he took pizza out of the trash or grabbed someone's piece of cake - and how much he loved the craft we all share.
While the students at the DE remembered Ryan, the congregants at the Vine Community Church on Wall Street were at their regular prayer night. They were told about Ryan's death by their pastor. Professors at the School of Journalism had noticed how religious Ryan was. One of them, J. Bruce Baumann, reached in his pocket and pulled out an angel he was going to give Ryan at his graduation. He wanted to recognize an extraordinary young man's faith and his desire to change things.
William H. Freivogel
director of the School of Journalism
