Goodbye, Jack
Posted by the Word team at 3/16/2008 1:34 PM 
Categories: Speechwriting, corporate communications, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Coaching, Executive Communications
Categories: Speechwriting, corporate communications, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Coaching, Executive Communications
We lost a great communicator in February. When I first got into communications in Atlanta everyone had heard of Burton-Campbell, one of the first big ad shops in town. Jack Burton and his partner sold the agency, and went their separate ways. “Cot Campbell got into racehorsing, I heard” he said when I ran into him at Kroger. “Don’t know why I didn’t do that well.” And then he gave me his trademark half-deadpan, half-mischief smile. He was the rare person who seemed grateful and completely satisfied with the way his life worked out. Jack loved fishing and he loved people -- after he sold the agency he would find non-profit multi-image projects and hire creative (and cheap) young people like me to work with him on raising money for some great cause. Even the lowest budget projects were a creative adventure for Jack -- never mind that he’d won Addy’s. It had been many years since I’d seen him when we met in the checkout lane that Friday evening. He and his wife had moved to an assisted living highrise near me. “You are not going to believe this,” he said. Jack made you feel like he had saved something wonderful to tell just you: “next week I’m going to be ninety years old.” I told him how wonderful he looked and we joked about a few things and he was gone. But I was lighter and happier for having spent a few minutes with Jack. He reminded me what it’s like to be with someone who leaves people better than they found them. The next Wednesday he died, and I just hope there are others coming up who have his kind of grace and can take the world lightly and handle it gently, the way he did. That Jack Burton spark needs to live on.
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