Author Roger Snell
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Well Done, Thou Good and Faithful Servant

9/22/2017

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Karla with baby Julie, one of daughter Melanie's favorite photos.
I met Karla Hoyt while investigating infant deaths at a hospital in southwest Missouri in 1986.

One-year-old Joanna was among three children Karla would lose in this life.

Karla endured more trials than any person I met in years of covering tragedy as a reporter. Yet she devoted faith and pain to helping others.

As she said, “The oak grows strongest on the windward side,” sending down the deepest roots where challenging winds blow.

Of all the extraordinary individuals in life I have met, Karla had such profound influence. Three generations of our family are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of her example of how faith and knowledge of eternal life can bring peace amid so many storms.

Karla, 70, passed away Tuesday and is being honored at her funeral today at 10 a.m.

Her own words are my strongest tribute today. She wrote how she dreamed of life and how it turned out:

“As a very new wife, I had imagined that my life with Bob would be the quiet, country cottage variety, with a flower-lined pathway leading to the front door of our little white stucco home. 

“The seasons would always be Spring and there would never be a need for screens on the open windows, for nothing undesirable would invade our home. 

“Our days would be busy with the tasks of living and serving. In the evenings we would securely draw all of our little children around us, (and the children would always be little) reading stories and scriptures to them in front of the open hearth. 

“After family prayer, they would kiss us goodnight and run obediently off to bed.”

Instead, Karla said she learned to be submissive, to “be still and know” of the Lord’s direction, sharing the reality that contrasted from her dream:

“I would have never guessed that life would be otherwise, that the pathway to our door would be rock-lined, our shutters would loosen and sag from unrelenting storms, and the windows would need screens of the strongest gauge. 

“Who would have guessed that around that hearth there would now be empty chairs and some children who will, indeed, remain childlike until death releases them to their true selves.”

Karla leaves behind Melanie, Nathan, Aaron, Lori and Daniel. But she’s back home for a glorious reunion with those children she held and lost so long ago: Joanna in 1980, Brye in 1983, and Julie in 1993.
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I thought I was writing a book of my life. Instead, you’re going to be reading about the extraordinary lives of people like Karla.
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Learning to see the world differently

9/17/2017

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“When you learn to see the world differently, it becomes a different world.”

With those words, famous, retired news anchorman Walter Cronkite introduced a public television painting series by artist John Stobart.⁠1 

Doug Byrum and I went to see Stobart during an art gallery exhibition in Lancaster, Ohio. Doug knew how to see the world differently, seeing people in the best light and finding optimism in the face of crippling challenges since birth.

Doug refused to use a wheelchair, a stubborn refusal to concede to limitations that started with surgery at age 4.  Doug developed incredible artistic ability while confined to a hospital for several months in a body cast.

In a preview of my upcoming book, I wanted to show you photos of this remarkable artist who turned disability into amazing ability.

Doug entered the world stillborn, but doctors revived him. Doctors told parents he would never see his second birthday. He survived seven surgeries between ages 4 and 17, and the insertion of steel rods into his spine. When he lived far longer than expected, doctors revised their estimate and said he would never hold a full-time job. They were wrong again.

As a frail young man, Doug remembered his mom frequently flipping the light on in his bedroom “just checking to make sure I was still breathing.”

Confined to bed, Doug learned at a young age that he “could do more with crayons than eat them or draw on walls.”

Doug is one of the most memorable people I ever met, when I reported on his lawsuit in Dec. 27, 1990. He alleged AT&T fired him when federal grants expired for hiring the disabled yet had used him for a productive career with the same condition.

The suit was stalled but settled quickly after my modern-day story of Scrooge and Tiny Tim was picked up internationally. Doug found my story on the Associated Press report in a Thailand English-language newspaper and in London.

Doug and I teamed up a few years later when I was with the newspaper in Akron to do a Sunday magazine cover story. The Andrews’ Raid was known as the “Great Locomotive Chase.” Walt Disney made a movie of the daring Civil War raid behind enemy lines led by Union volunteers and James Andrews, portrayed by Fess Parker in the Disney movie.

Doug devoted the remainder of his life to documenting every aspect of this raid, including tracking the graves of the raiders and getting them recognized with historical markers at the cemeteries. He solved the mystery of two raiders who would have been lost to history. 

There is a lot more to tell you in my latest book, and Doug earns an entire chapter. As I was digging through photos, I wanted to share the work of this remarkable person who passed away far too early in life.

Doug didn't just make lemonade out of lemons. He made lemon pie, lemon meringue and so much more.

The first draft of the book was finished Labor Day weekend and now my rewrite is in progress. I finished 108,000 words in 120 days, which might sound overwhelming. But that's a little over 800 words every single day, something I can do in 30 minutes.

In the first few weeks, that's all I did. Wife Linda would grab both of my hands, fall backwards with all of her strength to lift me to the side of a hospital bed in our home. She helped me to a wheelchair and then to my desk. Thirty minutes was pushing it, but I never missed a day. In the first few weeks, that's all I achieved and then I was back to bed for another 24 hours.

This ordeal and the remarkable recovery are also recounted in the book, including an extensive interview with the doctor who made it happen.

Please sign up for updates like this one as the book moves toward publication in November.

1 John Stobart’s WorldScape aired on PBS-TV in 1992. Stobart is an outstanding British maritime painter whose show was devoted to beginning artists. Stobart wrote a 1993 book, “Pleasures of Outdoor Painting with John Stobart,” based on the 13 episodes and plein air paintings he demonstrated.

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Doug Byrum's self portrait in charcoal pencil.
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A body cast couldn't stop the smiles.
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Samples of Doug's artwork
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The General was stolen by James Andrews and Ohio Union volunteers in a daring but failed raid deep inside Confederate lines. Doug did this colored pencil drawing for the cover story I wrote for the Akron Beacon Journal's ​Sunday magazine.
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Doug Byrum found the burial sites and won historical markers for Andrews’ Raiders.
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My book is coming to Amazon in November. Please sign up to my mailing list for more updates like this.
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    Author

    Roger Snell was a reporter for nearly two decades. His memoir recounts life in the newsroom, as bishop, and near death's door. Extraordinary, faithful and inspirational people are subjects of what he was dying to tell his granddaughter. Publication of "Love, Grandpa" is tentatively set for November 2017. ​His first book was about the 1929 Chicago Cubs.

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