Page 46 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2022 - Online Magazine
P. 46
Jim Stewart
In A Word
by Jane Bromley
know why, but I was assigned to longest nights I'd ever spent. I
drive the Jeep for the commander knew three of the people whose
for the three months I was there. bodies were brought in.”
Maybe they liked the way I said,
‘Yes, Sir.’ When I was sent to Ft. Jim left LPD after 10 years in 1975.
Knox, they made me Jeep driver Tom Allen, News Director of
for the company commander Channel 13 at the time, asked him
there. My permanent duty was at to do their police report which
Ft. Hood. I served my full three he did for six months. When the
years as Jeep driver for the base station’s Ag Reporter retired, Jim
commander. When my three years stepped in. “I had never been a
was up—on the very day I got farmer, but I knew lots of farmers
my discharge papers—my unit and respected them.” Jim was
was shipping out to Vietnam.” By on one of the first tractors rolling
that time, he had a wife and kids, into the nation’s capital in the
so he went home to his family. massive Farm Strike of 1977,
Blessed. when thousands of tractors drove
to Washington DC. “At that time,
Jim came back to Lubbock and there was a payphone on every
ccording to Jim Stewart worked for Bell Dairy again corner; we would stop, and I
(the Lubbock radio before joining the Lubbock would call in with my eyewitness
Apersonality, not the actor), Police Department in 1964. “My report. When it was time for me
he has led a “blessed” life; at toughest assignment was on May to go home, the boss asked me
least, that’s how he remembers 11, 1970. I was working 3-11; we to stay three more days because
it. He was born in Paris (Texas, were out doing Driver’s License they needed eyes on the ground.”
not France) in 1941. His father checks on Parkway Drive. We Serendipitously, he flew home
served his country in WWII could see a storm building, and it from that exciting trip on the
and in Korea, but when he got was raining hard. Around 10:00 Concorde. Blessed.
home, he mostly just worked at pm, we saw
odd jobs. His mama had to go to two tornadoes, By that time,
work, which meant “I had a ‘black and the sirens Jim was
mother’ who took care of us. We came on. At 2 married to
were close till the day she died. am, the chief Doris whom
Nobody had much money back sent me over to he’d met while
then, but everybody helped each Smylie Wilson working at
other.” See? Blessed. Junior High to LPD. He did a
help oversee short stint in
When Jim was 12, the family the makeshift Scott’s Bluff,
moved to Lubbock. “I graduated morgue for NB, but in
from Lubbock High School in the 26 people 1981, KFYO
‘59 –the year after Mac Davis. My whose bodies called and
first job was driving a milk truck had been asked, “Are you
for Bell Dairy, but then I enlisted recovered. ready to come
in the Army.” It was the Vietnam It’s where the home yet?”
years, and Jim fully expected to families had to For the next
be deployed. He was sent to Fort go and identify 22 years, Jim
Carson for boot camp. “I don't them. That Stewart was the
was one of the voice farmers
46 Lubbock Senior Link
