A friend and colleague gone too soon

I saw the name William Kinnison Haddox in an obituary and it didn’t ring a bell until I realized this was the real name for one of my best friends in the outdoors media. His nickname was one I could grasp as could thousands of others who have read and appreciated his work down through the years. Everybody knew him as Kinny Haddox.
The month of July marked the beginning and the end for this remarkable man, who was born on July 30, 1952 and passed away on July 1, 2024.
Kinny graduated from what was then NLU and began work as an outdoor writer, first for the News Star in Monroe. After several years, he began working for International Paper in Bastrop handling that company’s communications. When he left the News Star, I was hired as his replacement, writing weekly outdoors columns for that publication for 13 years.
Once he retired from International Paper, he dove head first into free lance writing for magazines and ultimately was named editor of the most popular outdoors magazine based in Louisiana, the Louisiana Sportsman, a position he held until his death. The July 2024 issue of that magazine carried two stories written by Haddox.
My relationship with Kinny Haddox has continued through the years chatting via phone about outdoor story possibilities. I picked his brain; he picked mine as in addition to his commanding duties as magazine editor, he continued to churn out excellent free-lance work.
Kinny and I were members of the Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association (LOWA). Most of the members of LOWA lived in south Louisiana. On more than one occasion at annual conference he and I and the other north Louisiana member, Terry Jones, would be honored with writing awards. The three of us became jokingly the Piney Woods Mafia, a title we were honored to claim.
I could go on and on about what this guy has meant to me down through the years but nothing is more outstanding in my mind than when I decided to write a book last year. I was asked by the editor to have people I knew who would be willing to write endorsements for my book, “Bamboozled By A Bobcat”. The first name I thought of was my friend, Kinny, and he was completely willing to do this for me.
In his own whimsical way, as only Kinny Haddox could do, he wrote “When he picks one out to write about it and you read it, you feel like you’ve been there with him the whole way. I swear one time after reading one of his tales about catching and cleaning some big old bluegill bream, I thought I could smell fish on my own hands.”
Kinny Haddox never backed away from writing about controversial matters and he dove into the topics headfirst. Whether it had to do with the proliferation of black bears and the hesitance of state officials to declare a hunting season for bears, or what to do about the rapid spread of feral hogs around the state, Kinny called ‘em as he saw ‘em and was not afraid to call officials out when they needed calling out.
On the flip side, he wrote about introducing kids to fishing and hunting and his upbringing and being tutored by his elders. He loved to write about his favorite fishing hole, Bussey Brake and his stories about how this fantastic fishery evolved make fascinating reading.
The outdoors world has lost a true disciple of all things outdoors and the thoughts in his mind that were transferred to his fingers as the millions of words he wrote over the years will remain in the hearts of Kinny Haddox’s fans for ages to come.
I, for one, will never forget my special friend.