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"Yes Howard, what is it?" I asked my friend Howard Dillard on Tuesday when he called me.

He wanted to tell me that his first campaign ad was finished. How excited he was to be starting full speed his race for mayor of Clinton. He just wanted to tell someone that he was hopefully going to be the next mayor of Clinton. We talked by cell phone in mid-afternoon, on a day of puffy white clouds and soft sunshine.

He was traveling on Highway 123 and would call me tomorrow.

It was the next morning that my wife, Mary, got a call from Shannon Payne, our City Clerk. When she hung up, she said sit down. She then told me that Howard died last night in a car crash, somewhere in a field on KY 123. (Later I learned he had a heart attack.)

Whatever else her next words were, I didn't hear. My world froze. My friend, who hours before was planning his last campaign, was no more.

Howard Dillard's funeral was a glorious celebration of a man who mentored younger men, who was loved by his family, church and the Masons he participated in for years. Howard taught and coached basketball and he used the sport to reach out to youngsters to steer them.