Remembering Papa Duck

The Times pays tribute to John Criner

By RALPH HARDIN

Evening Times Editor I t was almost 10 years ago that I met John Criner. At the time, I was working as a staff reporter for the Times, mostly covering West Memphis government and business news. At the time, the publisher was Alex Coulter and he brought in a fellow to meet the editor at the time, Gary Meece and they worked out a deal to publish a weekly hunting and _shing column and page in the paper.

Well, I’m admittedly not an outdoorsman. It just never really caught on with me the way it does so strongly with many of the folks who live around here, but I always enjoyed speaking a few minutes each week with Mr. Criner when he’d stop by to drop off his story and photos for the week – he was bringing in a typewritten column and actual printed out photos long after most of the world

See CRINER, page A2

CRINER CRINER

From page A1

had gone digital, which was part of his “old school” charm, I think.

Not long after that, I became editor, so it became part of my duty to get his stuff each week for the outdoors page. We would philosophize about this and that. One of his favorite subjects to discuss with me outside of hunting and fishing, which was definitely not my forte, was politics and history. He and I definitely did not see eye-to-eye on politics, so it was always fun to needle each other about what Obama, Trump or Biden was getting up to that week.

He was quite the story teller. And I don’t just mean the yarns he spun each week in the paper. He was an older fellow and as such he had acquired just a gaggle of stories. He even wrote a book called “Just Hunting Stories” and while it’s cool to read those stories, it was always better to hear him tell them with a little twinkle in his eye.

In 2020, the paper could no longer afford to pay an outdoors columnist, so I figured that’d be the end of seeing ol’ Papa Duck (I could never bring myself to call him anything but Mr. Criner), but he loved doing it so much, he kept right on doing it for free … although I did convince him to plug his Lakeside Taxidermy service at the end of each column.

So, even through the pandemic, Mr. Criner kept on keeping on, delivering a story each week with whatever photos he got or took over the weekend. I did eventually show him how to send an email and photos from his phone, so I did manage to drag him kicking and screaming into the digital world.

Well, a few weeks ago, he let me know that it was time for him to wind things down. A man in his 80s has his limits, to be sure. And although he was pretty vague about it, it was clear that his health was failing. I found out, like you do, through the grapevine (at the barber shop, I think) that he had late-stage cancer, which was later confirmed through more official channels.

He turned in his last column last week, and although he said he would possibly send something else in from time to time, it was not to be. I found out this (Tuesday) morning that Mr. Criner had passed away sometime Monday. He was in his 80s, not exactly sure how old, so he had a pretty good run, but it’s still always tough when someone you know passes on.

As I was writing this, I recalled several columns he had written about some of his old hunting buddies who had, as he liked to put it, gone on to those great hunting woods in the sky, and I think he’s probably enjoying having joined them there.

It has all happened too quickly to have funeral arrangements for today’s print edition, but when I get them, I’ll share them on Facebook and in the e-edition. Until then, we’ll miss you, Mr. Criner. Happy hunting!