We Lost a Friend -- RIP Mr. Seewald

This post is a little overdue, but it’s taken me some time to wrap my head around the fact we’ve lost a

great friend. William Hughes Seewald died over the weekend, while my wife and I were out-of-town. I learned of his death Monday from, of all things, Facebook.

My wife and I had supper with him Sunday, Sept. 8, so learning of his death was shocking. The supper was a kind of “farewell” celebration that I would be taking down The Amarillo Independent news website and converting it to a blog site. We didn’t count on it as a farewell dinner to the man himself.



Seewald knew I found his intellect intimidating, although as a friend he was anything but. He was also a man of wide interests, broad knowledge, great culture and unending kindness. We could discuss, and on that Sunday we did discuss, a wide range of topics. Sometimes we disagreed, but on the important progressive political issues, such as health care and gay rights (among other things), we agreed.  I hope I conveyed to him how much I appreciated him writing columns for The Amarillo Independent after he stopped contributing to the Amarillo Globe-News.

Losing Seewald just compounded an important message. Father Clifton Mann two-plus years ago, AJ Swope in January and now Buddy (he asked me to call him Wil) have once again driven home how fragile and fleeting life is.

I’ll miss him.