Years before I married Farmer Gary, the first person I spoke with each morning was Ron.

He was the morning guy at WTCJ radio and I was the morning newsperson. This was back in the day when many small towns had their own radio station. Tell City, Indiana’s family-owned radio station came online in the late 1940s.

It was the summer of 1980, I’d finished college and was starting my first job. Before long I was put on the morning-drive shift. Still had to cover night meetings, though. (Not that I’m complaining – it was at one of those meetings that I met Gary.)

I remember telling my parents on the phone that they would like Ron. He was funny on the air, but used a gentle humor. He realized a lot of local folks were waking up and getting ready for work listening to him. None of that shock-jock nonsense for his audience.

My parents – so far away in Connecticut – were pleased when I told them Ron and his wife invited me to Thanksgiving. I’d be flying home for Christmas, but couldn’t get the time off for the November holiday.

We had a lovely meal of turkey and all the fixings, with baby Rachel watching attentively. I believe she was just four months old at the time.

It was Ron who, a few months later, took special interest in the young farmer I’d been keeping company with:

“This will be your third date, right?” he asked in an all-too fatherly way (Ron – whose given name was Roland – was not quite a year older than me.) “You know what that means, don’t you?”

I hadn’t a clue what he was getting at … and said as much.

“After three dates, you’ll either marry him … or break his heart.”

Geez, Ron … where did that dumb rule come from? Shut up!

His words haunted me, though. I wasn’t sure about living the rest of my life in Indiana, but I sure liked that farmer. (Considering that Gary and I celebrate our 44th anniversary in a few days, I guess Ron was on the right track.)

In June of 1981, I got a job offer from a radio/TV station in Owensboro, Kentucky, and headed across the river to a larger newsroom.

I lost touch with Ron and his young family for a dozen years.

In the mid 1990s, memories stirred harshly when I saw Ron’s name featured in an article in the Indianapolis Monthly Magazine that arrived on my desk at work.

A true-crime article caught my eye and then quickly filled them with tears as I learned Ron had been murdered.

Murdered. In a church. Where he was student pastor.

Slowly reading each word, I learned Ron’s marriage hadn’t lasted. After his time at WTCJ, he’d worked for the American Cancer Society from 1987 to 1990 just a few towns north of us. From then, he started his schooling to become a Methodist minister.

On Sunday, September 19, 1993, Ron had just completed a sermon about forgiveness when a woman he’d dated briefly walked up to him and shot him three times in the chest.

Ron’s daughter, Rachel, was in the congregation. She was just 13.

There was an arrest and a trial. A guilty verdict. And a 60-year prison sentence.

The Indiana Supreme Court reduced the sentence to 40 years, since the verdict was guilty-but-mentally-ill. Good behavior and education credits further dropped the sentence to just 16 years.

Ron’s final sermon – the importance of forgiveness – might have been easy to listen to that Sunday morning so long ago. But it’s hard to practice, even all these years after that horrific day.

I choose to remember the morning deejay with the gentle laugh, the darling baby girl cooing at her first Thanksgiving, and the goofy Dad Jokes that surely Ron teased Rachel with as they spent precious father-daughter times together, never guessing how quickly those days would pass.

Rest in peace, Ron.

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