A Life of Words

I’m late with this post (what’s new?), but a week ago today, a longtime friend and former newspaper colleague threw an awesome party — officially dubbed “Tommy Cummings’ Bought Out Journalist Get-Together” — in Mansfield to celebrate the end of his glorious newspaper career. Tommy recently took a buyout from The Dallas Morning News, where he worked two stints in a variety of key roles, most recently as an Arts and Entertainment breaking news reporter.

As Tommy told me, he loved the work he’s been doing at the DMN, writing about trending topics and figures and often getting the chance to interview celebrities. Tommy and I also worked together in Sports at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the 1990s, and friends/colleagues from both papers came out to fete him at Taphouse at Market Street, one of his favorite Mansfield hangouts.

I arrived an hour and a half late after attending a celebration of life for Joe Zinecker, a dear Conroe High School childhood friend and longtime Mansfield resident who recently passed away. But I was happy to see there was still a large crowd of friends and former S-T and DMN colleagues at Tommy’s party, some of whom I haven’t seen in a while, others in many years. The newspaper business was always like family for me, and gatherings like Tommy’s are proof of that.

So now Tommy’s taking some well-deserved time off before diving into a book project — a historical autobiography about his adoptive father, a Native American who was born in 1894 and fought in World War I. Thomas Cummings Sr. adopted Tommy off a Menominee Indian reservation in Wisconsin in 1958 and brought him to Oklahoma to raise. Tommy’s father passed away in 1974, and the passion to write a book based on him has been burning for years.

We all wish you the best of luck, Tommy, and can’t wait to read your book!