On Thursday, we at The Reporter bid farewell to Cliff Dungan, our printer, handyman and photographer. He passed of mesothelioma on Sept. 27, leaving his wife Betsy, daughters Shannon and Candace and two beautiful grandchildren. He was 75 and had worked at The Reporter the past 17 years.
Cliff was one of those men every crew needs. Knowledgeable, responsible and affable. We at the paper all knew he was a big Aggie fan, but we never knew he had an animal science degree from that institution. He was an expert “tinkerer,” and could figure out about anything.
At his eulogy, his daughter Candace, now a Seattle resident, outlined the normal protective father versus independent daughter struggles. But as she has grown up she realized not every father was as responsible and dependable as hers. Not every father would drop everything to fly from Texas to Candace’s home in Seattle to help with an issue, much less bring enough brisket in his luggage to feed 60 people. He was a provider. (And a Texan barbecuer.)
Candace was shocked and proud of all the people who came forward this past week to tell the family of how Cliff helped someone. She joked about “spending 45 minutes at the gas station” because Cliff loved to talk. Yet he would kid about Betsy being the talker of the two.
John Krause spoke of his friendship with Cliff. It began 24 years ago with John mentioning the need for a compressor for his new mechanic shop. Though Cliff had only known him for three weeks, later that afternoon he backed up his old white pickup truck to the shop door and asked John to help him unload a box. It was a brand new compressor for the shop.
Cliff began doing our job printing here at The Reporter, working under Sam Summers, who had worked here as our printer since his post-World War II Navy days. Cliff learned a lot from Sam and had a respect and reverence for him. After Sam passed, Cliff took over those duties and there was no drop in quality.
Mike Brown remembers Cliff when he began taking sports photos, which he sold (and probably gave away a huge amount as well). We were in the Waco ISD Stadium for the Rockdale-Fairfield game, where security was tight and everyone in the media had to have a security badge.
Mike and I checked in, having to go through a gate, up to the press box to get badges, then Mike entered the gate onto the field where his security credentials and badge were checked again. Mike remembers Cliff walking up to him, camera in hand, asking him, “Where’d you get that little green badge?” Mike explained all the security procedures we had just gone through. Cliff answered, “Huh. I just came in the gate with the Fairfield cheerleaders.”
Dad and Mom visited him at the hospital a day before he passed. Mom’s purse was hitting the “up and down” buttons on his hospital bed controls. Even in his condition, Cliff joked, “Don’t hit the red button. It’ll eject me into the street.”
Local artist Melton Guthrie and Cliff became great friends, sharing lunch each Friday. Melton did a couple of terrific paintings of Cliff that captured the man who was into his work. They were political opposites, but they had enough in common to where that didn’t matter much. I look at their friendship and our national temperament and think we could sure use more of that today.
His older daughter Shannon mentioned the “happy tears” Cliff cried when people came to visit him in the hospital. He could feign a gruff exterior, she said, but Shannon had “no idea he was such a softie.” He shared those tears for granddaughters and family.
And now, we shed tears for him, happy to have known this man who blessed our lives with mirth and fix-its and friendship. Rest in peace, Cliff.
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