Gil had called me a couple of months ago to ask me if, when the time came for him “to be put down,” if I would do the service. The call was out of the blue, but because of our long-time friendship, I said “Certainly, as long as it is not too soon.” It came much sooner than any of us expected.

I received the news of his death within about an hour after it had happened, on Sunday evening, January 31. His son, Scott, called me the next morning to ask me if I would do the service.

I was honored to do it.

Gil was a transformative person in Mississippi history. He was known as a progressive voice for a two-party state. His biography gives the details: candidate for state senate in 1966 and 1967; for the United States Senate in 1972; for Governor in 1975 and 1979; and for Lieutenant Governor in 1983. He also served as Federal Railway Administrator under President George Herbert Walker Bush and was Chair of the Amtrak Board. His passions, outside of his wife, Deanie, and son, Scott, and grandson, Gil, were the future of Mississippi, politics, and transportation. He was deeply involved in many business ventures, including car dealerships, transportation, and property development.

The actual requiem Eucharist was Friday, February 5, at St. Paul’s Church in his hometown of Meridian. The church was full and the internment of his ashes was later that afternoon.

Here is the note I put on Facebook yesterday:

There was an appropriately eerie moment today. The presence of the Spirit seemed palpable.

 I was honored to officiate at the burial service for Gil Carmichael, our friend of more than 50 years (and the man who was responsible for Nora and me meeting 44 years ago). We had a moving service at his home parish, St. Paul’s, Meridian, and then traveled to rural Clarke County, to his family farm home (named “Nora”) in the Desoto Community.

Keep in mind that Gil loved trains. In fact, in addition to all his many civic involvements, he was a one-time Federal Railway Administrator (under Bush 41) and chair of the Amtrak board. He used to ride the train between his home in Meridian and one of his car dealerships in Tupelo.

 As we gathered for the graveside, for the internment of his cremains, a bagpiper played “Going Home” from the second floor porch of the 19^th century farmhouse. As the eerie sounds of the bagpipe wafted through the air, a train moved slowly down a track less than 100 yards away. The engineer sounded two blasts of his horn as the train moved slowly down the single rural rail. It was a poignant moment that touched us all. It was unplanned but wondrously appropriate.

 I was afraid to see who was the engineer on the train.

 Rest in peace, Gil.

PROPERS:  BURIAL OF THE DEAD, RITE 2

TEXTS:  ISAIAH 61:1-3; REVELATION 7:9-17; JOHN 5:24-27

PREACHED AT THE FUNERAL OF GIL CARMICHAEL AT ST. PAUL’S, MERIDIAN, ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2016

ONE SENTENCE:  The vision which Gil shared with us is like the vision God has for us: One of hope, unity, and promise.

I have heard it said many times that Mississippi is not a state, it is a club.

That statement seems so true today. We are all here because of our relationships with Gil – relationships which span time, distance and circumstance.

I would dare anyone to show me a Mississippian who had six degrees of separation from Gil. For that fact, I suspect it would be hard to find any Mississippian who has two degrees of separation from him. He was peripatetic… omnipresent… everywhere.

We are here because of what I would call Gil’s “hidden hand.” He touched so many lives – all of us – frequently in ways that escaped public notice. He molded and formed a generation of leaders who determine the course of our communities, our state, and our nation.

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In determining the origins of illness, doctors talk about Patient Zero. With Gil, we can talk about Catalyst Zero.

For many, he was a beginning.

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We all have our personal stories – stories of how he touched and transformed our lives. Each of you has yours. I have mine.

Gil was special to each of us. I recall that even when he was in his 30s, my family called him Old Gil, because of that thick shock of prematurely grey hair he already was sporting.

I recall how he sponsored me in the 1965 Soap Box Derby. My car was named for his young son, the Flying Scott.

He was, for me, like he was for many of us here: A second father, a mentor, an encourager, a guide, an advocate.

He represented the best we could be. He was a hero in the Coast Guard – and his heroism was noted in Life magazine of the day, and his actions are memorialized in the current movie, The Finest Hours.

He saw the potential which lay nascent in many. I am told of his walking through his car dealership one time and hearing a secretary say to a co-worker, “I want to sell cars.” Gil stopped cold, pivoted in place and said, “Yes you will – now.” And her life was transformed.

There is story after story which follows that same theme. You probably can identify.

Part of the reason that Gil was such a transformative person in our lives was that he was a visionary. He could peer over the horizon and see what was possible.

I know Gil’s loyalty was definitely Republican, but Ted Kennedy’s eulogy for his slain brother, Robert, seems so appropriate: Senator Kennedy quoted his brother as saying, “Some men see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’”

That captures Gil so well. Gil looked into the future and saw how things could be. He did that in his recovery work after Camille in 1969, in his work with HOPE (Highways Our Pressing Emergency), and in his days on the political stump and in service to his nation.

He was an anomaly in politics. He saw no barriers – racial, gender, social or otherwise. He saw the raw human potential in individuals and in this state. He was a modern-day St. Paul. He lived Paul’s words from Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female.”

He cast off fear, bigotry, and classism. He sought unity rather than division. He embraced hope. He pointed toward the possibilities. He set our sights on the shining city on the hill.

We would all do well to emulate him.

We would all do well to emulate him because his perspective was informed by a deep and profound faith. It was not the shallow, public, facile stuff that passes for faith today. It was deeper and more profound – a tap root for his life.

Many years ago he posed questions to me that caused my own personal journey to go deeper.

He did the same himself – always probing, asking, seeking deeper knowledge of the one to whom we give thanks today. He posed probing questions to our state, to our leaders, to her people. He called us to more… to better… to what was possible.

He read, he taught, he prayed – seeking guidance that would not only allow his life to be further transformed, but would lead to a transformed world.

His words, actions, and motives seem so in-line with Isaiah’s words 2,800 years ago:

“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…”

The loss of that voice of hope… of that visionary perspective… is the reason we grieve today. Yet we do so even as we hear the words of the Psalmist: Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Neither he nor we can escape the presence of the one who creates, sanctifies, and redeems us.

And as we grieve for the loss of our brother, we are reminded, too, of the Good News of Jesus’ words from John’s gospel: “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.”

We are a people of new life – a resurrection people. The radical, transformative hope that inspired and motivated Gil is very present for him now, and is breaking in to transform this world. We all should embrace that hope, and cast out the fear which divides us. We can fight it – or we can live it.

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I will finish with two quotations which seem so appropriate in bearing witness to a life faithfully, fully lived and shared.

First, in his eulogy for his brother, Ted Kennedy said, “Those of us who loved my brother and take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, and what he meant to others, shall someday come to pass for all the world.”

I can only say, Amen. We can hope. We can live that hope. We can be that hope for others.

And for those in the trenches – where Gil served his state and nation – there is that wonderful quotation from a fellow Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, from a speech in Paris in 1910:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Thank God, Gil was in the arena. And Gil was in our lives. We have all been blessed beyond measure.

William Browning, an Ole Miss journalism student a decade ago, has an interesting account of “David Halberstam’s Mississippi Apprenticeship” in the latest Columbia Journalism Review. In it, Browning tells the story of the awkward relationship between the daring, liberal young Harvard graduate – who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize and fame – and Henry Harris, the very conservative editor of The Daily Times Leader in West Point, who gave Halberstam his first job. The $46-a-week assignment that began in 1955 lasted only eight months, and it is amazing that Halberstam and Harris lasted that long together.

Despite his differences with Harris, Halberstam developed a life-long affection for Mississippi, and, later, for Ole Miss, where he occasionally lectured and delivered the commencement address shortly before his death in an automobile accident in 2007. After his daughter, Julia, worked in the Mississippi Delta for the Teach for America program, the Halberstam family directed memorial contributions to the Delta project.

“There are those who find small-town complexities of ordinary people compelling enough for a whole career,” said Charlie Mitchell, assistant dean of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media. “It’s equally true that those who are most effective when they advance to larger issues and audiences usually have gained insights into the foibles of humanity and gained context for everything they do from a small-town mayor and aldermen debating whether to add a fountain in the town park.”

Browning served as a reporter for the Greenwood Commonwealth after leaving Ole Miss and is now managing editor of the Columbus Dispatch in Columbus, Mississippi.

Professor Joe Atkins remembers Browning as an outstanding student who showed a great deal of promise. Another former teacher, Curtis Wilkie, called Browning, a product of small-town north Mississippi, “a diamond in the rough” who has the talent to go far in journalism.”

Read Browning’s article at cjr.org.

By Neal McCready

The worst day in Steven McRoberts’ coaching career began with a phone call at 3:15 a.m.

Hours later, Ole Miss’ volleyball coach was breaking horrible news to his team. Ty Laporte, one of the most popular athletes on the Ole Miss campus, had died Thursday night in a car accident near Holly Springs, Miss.

“She had a big bright smile,” McRoberts said Sunday night in a quiet moment in his home. “She was loud. She was the center of attention.”

McRoberts didn’t recruit Laporte. By the time he arrived in Oxford from Tulsa, Laporte had reshirted a season due to a knee injury and played two seasons.

“When we got here, we saw right away that she had a personality that wanted to command the room,” McRoberts said. “We had our moments where we butted heads but it brought us closer together.

“She would challenge me. I would challenge her. Players like that make you grow as a coach.”

On the court, Laporte finished her Ole Miss career ranked third all-time in block assists with 280 and third all-time in total blocks with 334. She also ranks fifth all-time in kills with 999.

“It was really fun to see her grow on the court and off the court,” McRoberts said. “It was a lot of fun.”

During her last two years under McRoberts, Laporte helped lead the Rebels to consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time in nearly three decades, and, in 2015, the best start in school history and the most home wins, 13.

As a senior, Laporte was named AVCA Honorable Mention All-Region and ranked among the top 10 in the SEC in hitting percentage. Laporte also was a member of the Ole Miss track & field team, competing in the high jump. She ranks ninth in school history in the outdoor high jump with a college-best clearance of 5 feet, 7.75 inches in 2014.

Laporte was nearly 5-foot-11. She typically was squared up against Southeastern Conference players who ranged from 6-2 to 6-5.

“Her competitiveness and her drive was such that when she looked across the net, she didn’t care who was on the other side,” McRoberts said. “She wanted to prove to them that she belonged on the court. A lot of that was proving to herself, too. She had a great senior year. She was looking recently at some options in maybe playing overseas.”

Laporte’s legacy at Ole Miss was defined more, McRoberts said, by who she was off the court than the player she was on it.

On Friday morning, the team sat around in the locker room reflecting on their friend.

“Most of the time we were laughing,” McRoberts said. “She just lit up the room. She just had funny things about her all the time.”

After one game, Ole Miss volleyball t-shirts were passed out to fans as a promotion. Laporte had noticed an older gentleman who frequented the Rebels’ games.

“She said, ‘I want to make sure that guy gets a t-shirt,’” McRoberts said. “She pointed at a man in the stands. He was an elderly, shy man who came to a lot of the game and just watched the games. She said, ‘I want to make sure he gets a t-shirt for always coming.’ She walked up and handed it to the guy and he was smiling from ear to ear.

“If kids were around, she was always with the kids. If my kids walked in the gym, especially Nate, my two-year-old, she was always messing with him. She was really good at camp with the kids.”

McRoberts’ phone has rung around the clock with fans telling him their memories of Laporte. One lady told him about her daughter, an Ole Miss volleyball fan who was battling cancer. Laporte sent the girl one of her volleyball jerseys with all of the other players’ autographs.

“That’s her,” McRoberts said, his voice cracking with emotion. “She wanted others to see her competitiveness, her fire, her being loud but, behind the scenes, she was really this sweet young lady who looked out for others.

“She was complicated but she loved us and we loved her.”

This article appeared on olemiss.n.rivals.com.

Former Ole Miss basketball All-American Johnny Neumann has been named to the 2016 SEC Legends class, the conference office announced in Feb. 19. He completed all the requirements for a B.A.J. last December.

One of the most exciting players in college basketball history, Neumann electrified crowds in Oxford and throughout the Southeast in his one season at with the Rebels and set records that might never be touched. Neumann led the nation in scoring as a sophomore at 40.1 points a game and was named to several 1971 All-America squads. The SEC Player of the Year, Neumann holds the Ole Miss single-season scoring record with 923 points.

Off the court, he received Academic All-America and Academic All-SEC accolades. He left Ole Miss after the 1971 season to play for the ABA Memphis Tams. His professional career also included stints in Indiana, Los Angeles and Utah, and he has played or coached overseas including serving as a head coach in China, Greece, Israel and Japan.

In addition to Neumann, the 2016 class includes Ennis Whatley, Alabama; Pat Bradley, Arkansas; Jack Stewart, Auburn; Lee Humphrey, Florida; Jarvis Hayes, Georgia; Larry Conley, Kentucky; Stanley Roberts, LSU; Mario Austin, Mississippi State; Devan Downey, South Carolina; Vincent Yarbrough, Tennessee; Carroll Broussard, Texas A&M; Shan Foster, Vanderbilt.

Each SEC Basketball Legend will be recognized at halftime of his institution’s first game at the tournament.

Highlighting the schedule of events at the Sunkist Soda SEC FanFare will be appearances by selected legends.

This article appeared in The Oxford Eagle on Feb. 21, 2016.