| Amarillo Globe-News
A table outside the church fellowship hall was adorned with my dad’s chaps from the 1960s that have “McLean Roping Club” stitched onto them, some decorative spurs with his initials and one of his hats, gray felt and creased neatly but with brown sweat stains around the band.
That was on his birthday, Feb. 20. Ten days later, at another church in the small town of McLean, two saddles rested on stands in front of the worship stage. One had a fishing vest and a red bandanna attached, the other a pair of chaps hanging from the horn and a black felt hat on the seat.
We had a good family and community turnout for Johnny Haynes’ 90th birthday party, and many more – some of them the same people – attended the memorial service March 2 for Mike Darsey, who had left this world after a cruel, three-year illness. Mike D., as I called my classmate to differentiate from my Mike H., was 70 years old.
Younger people may not see much difference between 70 and 90, but it’s a whole generation, and of course, it doesn’t seem fair that someone who was in the first grade with me is gone while people his parents’ age still enjoy their families and God’s creation.
We Christians believe we live in a fallen world and that our true home comes later. But it’s hard not to admire and cling to the good we see around us. At the birthday celebration and at the celebration of Mike D.’s life, we heard inspiring words from friends and family. Community members young and old reminisced about how Johnny Haynes had mentored them in sports or taught them in Sunday school. My siblings and I recalled how he and our late mother, Joyce, attended our every school event, and our spouses thanked him for welcoming them into the family.
The Darsey memorial was even more poignant, of course. With his wife, Leslie, daughter Melissa, son Trenton and fiancé Rudy, and grandson Bryce on the front row, local musicians Bobby and Carey Richardson harmonized beautifully on songs such as “Go Rest High On That Mountain.”
The essence of a Texas Panhandle town came through in the words of three speakers as relative youngster Ike Hanes, who had lost his father, Marshall Hanes, just weeks before, talked of the encouragement Mike D. had given him in team roping and in following Jesus. JT Haynes, a little older, pointed out Mike’s insistence on perfection in everything he did, from fly-fishing to roping to golf, and Dr. Richard Back, another of Mike’s high school classmates, echoed that observation.
Back, a member of the Panhandle Sports Hall of Fame as a golfer, is a psychologist in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He brought laughter describing how Mike D. called him asking what direction his right thumb should be pointing at the top of his backswing. When Back told him the thumb should be parallel to the line of flight, Mike said, “Well, that’s what Tiger said in ‘Golf Digest.’”
Darsey certainly was a stickler for details and a striver for excellence. Our high school football coach, Fred Hedgecoke, couldn’t make it to the service from the Dallas area but sent a creatively written eulogy that my cousin, the Rev. Thacker Haynes, read aloud. Hedgecoke wrote about first seeing Mike D. on McLean’s undefeated and unscored-on eighth-grade football team:
“I’ve never seen a kid play with such dogged determination. Before the game was over, I was thinking, ‘I hope that little guy doesn’t hurt somebody.’” Hedgecoke said Mike – whose speed earned him the nickname, “Diesel Darsey” – was dedicated enough that “Somebody told me Mike slept with a football.”
In high school, Mike D. was a 110-pound tight end and a defensive back. Hedgecoke recalled that in Darsey’s senior year, the team pledged to score against Lefors the first time they touched the ball. “On the third play of the game, Lefors decided to pass and pick on the little kid,” the coach wrote. “Mike intercepted the ball and ran it back for a touchdown. That was the first time the Tigers touched the ball.”
Hedgecoke said that in a talk at a Walk to Emmaus retreat, Mike said, “Being a disciple requires far greater commitment than football.” The coach wrote, “Many times in life, he scored the first time he touched the ball.”
Cousin Thacker, also a schoolmate since the first grade, said that three years ago, Mike D. asked him to speak at his memorial service and asked him to mention three personal achievements he was proud of accomplishing. Thacker did.
“No. 1: Mike was very proud of being a McLean Tiger,” the pastor said. “That even though he was the littlest one on the team, he was able to contribute and make a difference.
“No. 2: He was very proud of being the salutatorian of the McLean High School Class of 1969. In study hall, Mike used that time to actually study.”
I can attest to Darsey’s diligence in academics. He and I were roommates our first two years at Texas Tech, and I might not have made an A in a math course without his help. Of course, he made an A, too, became a Tech graduate and was a lifelong Red Raider fan.
“The last thing Mike was proud of was that he was born again,” my cousin said. Thacker said that after he became a Methodist preacher, Mike called often with spiritual questions. “We would talk for hours about Jesus and about God,” he said.
Thacker baptized Mike, Leslie and their son, Trent. Mike was last. After he was immersed, Mike said, “You held me under a lot longer than the rest of them.” Thacker said, “Mike, I’ve known you a lot longer.”
“From that point on, Mike has been all in for Jesus,” Thacker said. “He gave his relationship with Jesus top priority.”
Because I was born six weeks before Mike D., I can say that from my perspective, he was way too young at his passing. Others are taken in car wrecks, by childhood cancer, by COVID-19. Then there are those like Dad, who in his ninth decade, even after hip surgery, is playing a few holes of golf and enjoying his great-grandchildren.
God doesn’t tell us how long we’ll be here. He just promises that with faith in him, we have a forever home to go to. I hope it’s close to a golf course and a roping arena.
Mike Haynes taught journalism at Amarillo College from 1991 to 2016. He can be reached at haynescolumn@gmail.com. Go to www.haynescolumn.blogspot.com for other recent columns.
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