Carl Langley was one of the very few people who knew in advance about my first marriage. I had to cut him in on my plans because he was covering for me at the Aiken (S.C.) Bureau of the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle and Herald during the week I was taking off for the honeymoon.

My bride was a shy young girl who didn’t want a big wedding. So I, eager to please her, slipped into the next county for a marriage license. A judge probate’s assistant in Edgefield, S.C., performed the ceremony and we drove to Charleston for a brief honeymoon.

Carl Langley had just joined me as the second staffer in our news bureau, and to him fell the task of mollifying an angry mother-in-law who refused to believe that he wasn’t in on the plot.

Carl handled it with the aplomb that was to mark his long career as a reporter, editor and author. The marriage ended 26 years later with the death of my wife. Carl’s career ended March 25, 2011, just two days before what would have been my 54th wedding anniversary. Carl died of cancer.

Carl had shown up for work in March 1957, driving a smart-looking red-and-white Ford Ranchwagon that was still reeking from a skunk he had turned into road kill on the way up from his hometown of Lake City in South Carolina’s Pee Dee region. He was fresh out of the Army, and moved his wife, Norma, and baby daughter, Wanda, into the Camellia Trailer Park, a neat community of young marrieds. In those days, mobile homes were standard starter homes for young people; the term “trailer-park trash” had not yet been coined, or merited. They were there when Carl’s son was born. They named him after his father, but refused to call him Junior. Carl decided to call him “Klem Kadiddlehopper” after comedian Red Skelton’s alter ego. It was shortened to “Hoppy.” The lad grew up to be a star kicker for Old Miss.

Carl and I learned newspapering together. I had left college the previous year and had spent most of my time running the Aiken Bureau alone, or with the assistance of part-time help of dubious qualifications. I had sent one of those stand-ins to the county jail to pick up a routine story. When he failed to return, I called the jail and learned that he had been arrested on a bad-check charge and was, at the moment detained, behind bars.

Carl was a breath of fresh air — a man who knew a story when he saw it and pursued it with skill and determination. He had the instincts of a reporter and the chutzpah to follow them. I was a timid introvert fresh off the mill village, and the demands of a probing reporter didn’t come natural to me. Trying to keep up with Carl helped me to grow into my role.

We had some memorable times together. I remember running through the woods with Carl and a posse of county deputies who were searching for an armed fugitive. Carl and I got separated from the pack. We spotted a rotting barn, and Carl ran right up to it to look inside. I half expected to see him get his head blown off. But the fugitive was not inside. He was later captured without incident.

Carl wrote an award-winning story about another fugitive who ran into the woods of Aiken County. The State Law Enforcement Division in Columbia sent its best bloodhound to track down the culprit. The bloodhound’s nose was true; he found his man. But the fugitive had a way with dogs. He slipped a cord through the bloodhound’s collar and tied him to a tree.

We lived in an era when the sheriff’s main duty was finding and destroying whiskey stills. Carl covered one raid in which the moonshiner saw the sheriff coming in advance and poured his inventory down the kitchen sink. The kitchen sink had a drain pipe that ended in mid-air. It poured its discharge directly onto the ground under the house. The sheriff pushed a wash tub under the pipe and collected his evidence.

Later, we watched together as deputies dug up the bodies of two women who had been murdered months earlier by the husband of one of them. Carl had got the tip on this grisly discovery. 

We also covered the beginnings of the civil rights movement, including an attempted sit-in at Orangeburg, site of the all-black South Carolina State University. Time magazine later asked for copies of the photos we made of a minor scuffle. It paid us the handsome price of $25, though it never published them.

I left Aiken and took a job in Norfolk, Va. that opened the way for a rewarding career as a reporter, editor and columnist.

Our managing editor in Augusta told me, “Carl Langley could work for any newspaper in the country if he wanted to.”

But Carl elected to stay in Aiken. He later became mayor of the small town of New Ellenton, created when a nuclear-materials plant displaced the original town of Ellenton. Carl took up golf, pursued civic activities and became a fixture in the area. He became a highly regarded editor with the Augusta Chronicle, then left to become a senior writer for the much smaller Aiken Standard. He wrote several books on local topics and donated the proceeds to an animal-rescue organization.

We lost touch after I moved away, except for occasional chance encounters when I was home visiting family. Each time I dropped by the Aiken Standard offices, Carl was out pursuing a story.

Then a reader of this column informed me that Carl was gravely ill and was not expected to survive.

I called Carl and we chatted, reminiscing about old times. His mind was still sharp; his spirit still feisty.

He told me I had taught him a great deal about being a reporter.

He was overly generous. I learned more from him.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625 or  at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.