Nevada preacher's kid tells us the way it was

This column originally ran in the July 23, 1999 edition of the Nevada Daily Mail.

In each Daily Mail we have the opportunity to learn about people and things from the past in Huell Warren's columns from 100, 75 and 50 years ago. But how many know that this 35-year veteran of the Associated Press began his newspaper career right here with the Nevada Daily Mail?

Huell Earl Warren, who was the son of the minister and wife of the First Christian Church. Huell Ewing and Olive Warren, who served the church from 1929 to1936, started covering high school sports when he was a freshman at Nevada High School. His father had been a newspaperman before he became a minister and played football in college under the name of "Bunny Warren." It seemed a natural thing to urge his son to include both of these interests in a budding career. Jack Bean, who was the editor of the Nevada Daily Mail, gave Huell the job that Mary Virginia Bean was quitting in order to marry Vern Edmiston. So as a sophomore in high school Huell began responsibilities as a reporter. In high school he took a journalism course under Marianna (Gage) Logan and was also the editor of the Crimson and Gray.

In 1934, he left Nevada to take a $15 a week job in the Associated Press bureau in St. Louis. This started his professional career with the Associated Press, which took him to Columbia, Mo., Buffalo, N.Y., Baltimore and Annapolis, Md., New York City and Washington, D.C. He came to Kansas City in 1956 from Baltimore.

One of his outstanding memories of his years as a reporter was at the beginning of World War II. When Hitler invaded Poland, Huell worked through the night in the AP office and looked out to see the sun rising across Rockefeller Center. When Japan surrendered after VJ Day, Huell also worked through the night in the newsroom and saw the sun rise over Rockefeller Center again when the war ended.

Huell's first wife, Barbara Lovell died when their three children were small, so for three years Huell's younger brother Bob and wife Evelyn cared for the children. In 1956 Huell returned to Nevada to visit friends in the Farm and Home office and saw a former childhood playmate, Margaret Loving, who was working across the office. Margaret (Coons), who comes from the pioneer Prewitt family, was the widow of Tom Loving. After returning to Kansas City, Huell wrote to Margaret and on July 23, 1959 they were married. They will celebrate their 40th anniversary today.

The couple went to Texas to get the three children and Margaret, who was a 1935 graduate of Nevada High School, became mother of Huell L. (Russ), Christopher and Helen Warren. Vernon County residents know Russ from his news announcing over KNEM/KNMO. Christopher lives and works in San Antonio, and Helen is on the staff of Iowa Wesleyan College in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. When Russ was at Warrensburg he was covering the University High School basketball game when the present Dr. Lovinger was the center.

Since returning to Nevada in 1977, the Warrens were active in Jerry Burch's campaigns and terms of office where Margaret was secretary and Huell wrote the weekly reports and the campaign advertising. Huell served on the Library Board, and they are supporters of Habitat for Humanity. Huell has covered The Way It Was column for three years, getting his information through the computer in the genealogical room at the Nevada Library.

The middle brother of the Warren family, Johnnie E. Warren, who did much of his growing up in Nevada, died after long bout with Alzheimer's in 1996. He had enjoyed a very colorful career as a pilot with Pan Am until his health failed.

Bob, the youngest brother, became a minister and lives in Conroe, Texas, where he spends much time with the sport of golf.

Huell is proud of the heritage his father left the First Christian Church in Nevada. He devised a system to organize the official board of the church. The system was so successful that other churches followed it and it was know to have been conceived and piloted at the Nevada Church. Also, the senior Huell redid the auditorium of the church, moving the baptistery from the floor in what is not the parlor to the front of the church and making other changes in the altar area of the church. After the fire in 1948, the auditorium was restored following the plan that the Rev. Warren had begun.

Three generations of Warrens have made a strong impact on Nevada, and as we learn about the way it was, we know not that part of the way it was included the Warren, Coons and Prewitt families who continue to serve us today.