Remembering Hank
Henry J. Waters III was a pioneering journalist, editor, publisher, and columnist for over 50 years at the Columbia Daily Tribune newspaper in Columbia, MO. Like the sun, he was a constant source of energy and light. Over the course of his career as a journalist extraordinaire, Hank (as he was known to all) penned, typed, and published over 18,000 editorials. “Think in Ink” is what he did for over 50 years, and agree with him or not, you wanted to know what Hank was thinking.
Our pal Hank was already on his way to becoming a legend in journalism when I first met him over thirty years ago. At the time, I was the National Geographic’s Missouri Geography Bee Coordinator and was responsible for organizing the annual state-level competition. To inspire the students, parents, and teachers coming to the event at MU, I decided to invite the esteemed newspaper editor and publisher to be our keynote speaker. I was certain that Mr. Waters would be the perfect person to instill in the young Bee contestants the importance of knowing how geography influences their lives, community, state, country, and the world.
So, I invited Hank to meet me at Trattoria Strada Nova restaurant on Ninth Street. Though we’d never met, we talked for two solid hours. I bought lunch that day and Hank agreed to be the guest speaker at the Geography Bee that spring. From then on, Hank Waters and his publisher and wife Vicki Russell became regulars at our annual December open house at the country home we called Breakfast Creek. Whatever the weather, town and country guests arrived for an evening of lively conversation and a Christmas feast—Honey-baked ham, assorted sides and relishes, homemade pumpkin and pecan pies, and an array of festive libations. From Boone County farmers to city bankers and politicos, everyone hoped for a chance to bend Hank’s ear or dish out an earful about one of his spirited editorials.
In 1997, Hank’s General Manager Jim Robertson invited me to lunch. That day, I was hired to write a weekly column for the Tribune that continue until Kit and moved to Nevada City in 2021. Officially, Hank was my editor and publisher, but above all he was a treasured friend and pal. Like Kit and me, Hank and Vicki loved exploring new horizons, and it wasn’t long before we were planning travel adventures as a quartet.
During the summer of 1998, the four of us flew on a whim to NYC. We shared a two-bedroom suite at the old Mayflower Hotel on Central Park SW—a great location from which to explore Manhattan. As chief urban walking tour director, I planned outings on foot, by subway, taxi, and ferry. Our Manhattan adventures took us through an amazing urban patchwork of ethnic neighborhoods, grand and pocket-sized parks, theater and fashion districts, historic sites, cathedrals religious and financial, and across geographic and cultural boundaries.
After a fantastic dining experience at Ristorante Grifone—a 5-star restaurant serving upscale Northern Italian classics—Vicki and the two of us agreed not to show Hank the bill. The next night, Hank chose a BYOB, off-Broadway neighborhood, Bangladeshi restaurant that he thought better suited our agreed upon budget. Fans of live theater and musicals, we lucked into front row balcony tickets to Les Misérables. There were also stops for coffee, people and python watching in Central Park, bookstore browsing, and two serendipitous encounters in the Mayflower Hotel’s lobby elevator with actress Vanessa Redgrave who’d just finished filming the movie version of Virginia Woolf’s novel, Mrs. Dalloway.
In the years that followed, Hank and Vicki spent many a Missouri winter’s night mapping and plotting summer outings navigating American rivers aboard their boat, The Missouri Traveler. On these journeys, they stopped to explore towns along their route until they finally reached the Florida Keys. At that point, the two co-captains decided to venture across the Florida Straits to Cuba and invited us to join them in 2003. On our 90-mile midnight-to-dawn crossing from Key West to Cuba and over the course of our walks around Old Havana, we once again witnessed what an incredible and perfectly matched couple Hank and Vicki were. We loved their sense of fun, easy way with strangers, and generosity in inviting friends and family to come along on for the ride.
In the years that followed, Hank was the golden heart of a circle of compatriots we dubbed “the Algonquin Scribblers.” Conceived and convened by Kit, the Scribblers had deep roots in the worlds of newspaper and radio journalism. We gathered every six weeks at Boomerang Creek from 2011 until Kit and I moved to Nevada City a decade later. Our purpose was to share a few bottles of wine while whining about the current state of politics and role of the media.
Over dinner last week, Kit and I talked about Hank and our final encounter with his energy and light three Augusts ago. We’d set out on a pre-dawn walk around our meadow at Boomerang Creek. Venus was bright in the sky that morning. Just after 6 a.m., a second celestial body was momentarily visible overhead. Then just as suddenly, it was gone. I will forever believe it was Hank setting off on his final journey, pausing to wink at us one last time as his bright, undaunted spirit soared upward toward a new world.