Tom Junod: In memory of former Atlanta magazine editor-in-chief Lee Walburn

Photograph by Emmett Martin

Lee Walburn was a proud man. He was proud of being a certain kind of man—a country man who succeeded in the city and then went back to the country. He was proud of being stubborn as a stone and weepy as a cloud. He was proud of his beard, which he trimmed but never changed. He was proud of the accolades he won as an editor of Atlanta magazine but not as proud as he was of the stories he published. He was proud of coddling his writers. He was proud of scaring his bosses. He was proud of playing favorites. He was proud of hiring his favorites when his favorites were nobodies from nowhere. He was proud of being a working journalist, and of teaching everyone he hired to work, under threat of nothing more than the prospect of disappointing him.

He was proud of his taste in all things—writers, writing, country music, and, well, barbecue. He was proud of shaking his head and exclaiming “Mmmm mmm mmm” when he tasted something he liked. He was proud of knowing Hank Aaron. He was proud of being a good athlete, but especially proud that his wife Jackie was a better one. He was proud of his pickleball game and hers—theirs. He was proud he bought his house in the country to prove his love for her. He was proud that he tried to finish a tennis match with a burst appendix. He was proud that his two sons, Steve and David, made their own lives in their own way. He was proud that his daughter Shannon was there for him when he was ill and still smiled when she saw him. He was proud that he never backed down from a fight, including the long one he had with cancer.

He was proud, but his pride was not the kind said to “goeth before a fall” but rather the kind that allowed him to do pushups when his skin had yellowed and his body had turned skimpy. He was proud of being proud. He was proud of being a father to one, two, three, and then many—and the great gift of his pride was that he shared it with you. If he was proud of you, then by God he let you know it, if only by the shy little smile that crept to his lips in your company.

It could change lives, that smile.

And I’m proud to say that it—no, he, Lee Walburn, who hired me out of nowhere just about 40 years ago and made a writer out of me by becoming fatherly to me—changed mine.

Advertisement