Never Don't Pay Attention by Jan Cleere

Author:Jan Cleere
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781442247284
Publisher: TwoDot

Chapter 15 My job is to capture that moment.

“Lex Connelly Killed in Airplane Crash,” read the April 18, 1984, ProRodeo Sports News headline. “Former Rodeo Cowboy Association executive director Lex Connelly was killed April 5 when his light plane crashed into a hillside near Baker, Or. Connelly was enroute [sic] to Spokane, Wa, where he was to announce the Diamond Spur rodeo.”

Fifty-eight-year-old Lex and his wife, Shirley, were alone in the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza plane when it went down outside of Baker, Oregon. The weather report had called for heavy rain in the area that day with ground temperatures in the mid-forties. The cause of the crash was listed as iced-over wings. The two were buried in Fresno, California, where they lived and worked.

At the time of his death, Lex was announcing pregame and halftime shows for the San Francisco 49ers football team, as well as maintaining a continued interest in the Hunger Out-reach program in Fresno. In the ProRodeo Sports News article, his daughter said that her dad and Shirley “for all practical purposes . . . started public television in Fresno when they took over, developed, and ran Channel 18,” KVPT Valley Public Television.

He always knew how he wanted to be remembered, said his daughter: “A very simple service and a good stiff drink for his friends.”

“Lex never liked to blow his own horn,” said then PRCA executive vice president Bob Eidson. “Probably by choice, he never got the recognition he deserved pertaining to the growth of the rodeo business. Or in life, for that matter.”

Lex Connelly was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1985.

Louise was home on the X9 Ranch when she heard the news. The love of her life was gone. Heartbroken and beyond consolation, she aimlessly walked around the house and out into the soft spring air. She had recently added a negative-edge swimming pool on her property, and as she stood there wondering what else life was going to throw at her, a white dove appeared. (Actually it was a white pigeon, but Louise always thought of it as a dove.) It flew across the water and landed on the other side of the pool. Immediately Louise knew that Lex was letting her know he was all right, and that she too would be all right—eventually.

From then on the anniversary of Lex’s death appeared on every one of Louise’s appointment calendars.

Three days later she was taking pictures at a rodeo in Cave Creek, then on to the Globe competition. She went to New York in May, a trip she took almost every year to visit her father and stepmother (Joseph Larocque had married Edna Strongfeld Callaway on August 7, 1936.). Her busy scheduled continued to keep her occupied, but her thoughts of Lex never ceased. Reflecting on those rare occasions when they had met up with each other on the rodeo circuit, Louise may have wondered what she could look forward to in the coming years.

She must have decided travel was the

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