Tag Archives: Eddie Melin

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RIP, Myrna Raffkind

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My heart is broken at this very moment.

I have just learned that one of the dearest, sweetest, loveliest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing has left this world.

Myrna Raffkind was — oh my, how does one describe this individual? — the embodiment of goodness.

The Amarillo Globe-News honored her with its coveted Woman of the Year award for 2010. Interestingly, she earned that honor the year the newspaper honored the late Eddie Melin as its Man of the Year. Collectively, these two folks elevated the kindness quotient to stratospheric heights.

Myrna was a bit of anomaly in this part of the world.

She was an unabashed political liberal in a region dominated at almost every level of life by political conservatives. She and I had a thing or two in common in that regard. We knew that about each other. We would chuckle among ourselves at that reality.

None of that ever got her down. Indeed, I never heard a single soul in Amarillo ever saying a negative word about Myrna. No one!

Myrna was a prolific writer of essays she would submit to the newspaper. I published them gladly — and not because I endorsed her point of view. I did so to honor her kindness and wisdom that transcended partisan labels. Myrna’s enormous heart would reveal itself in her essays.

Years ago I was visiting with her nephew, George Raffkind — the clothier and owner of the store that carries his name — about his Aunt Myrna. I told him how much I “love and adore your aunt.”

“Yes,” George Raffkind respond, “she’s a bit more liberal than most of us around here.” I replied to Myrna’s nephew, “As I was saying, I love and adore her.”

I would see Myrna occasionally at the grocery store on Saturday. She always took the time to visit and we shared a political view on an issue of the day. This observant Jewish lady would send my wife and me holiday cards every Christmas, which always would include a lovely personal note wishing us a happy holiday and new year.

Amarillo has lost a towering figure contained in a diminutive form.

I will miss her terribly.

local news

Amarillo has lost a giant

Billy Joel once sang a song with the lyric “only the good die young.”

He was mistaken. We all have known that. The good do live long as well.

Eddie Melin wasn’t just good. He was great. A great man and a giant among giants in the community he loved with all his heart.

Eddie died today at the tender age of 102.

My heart is shattered into a million pieces.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2015-04-16/arts-giant-eddie-melin-dies-102#comment-214003

I’ve known Eddie for 20 years, dating back to the time I joined the Rotary Club of Amarillo, of which Eddie was a member. He and I formed an instant friendship.

Over the years I learned a lot about Eddie Melin. I learned about his devotion to music, of his effort to help revive the Amarillo Symphony, of his love of Amarillo — even though he, like many of us, was a transplant. I learned of his devotion to his late wife, Olive. I learned of his impeccable sense of humor.

The year I was selected as president of the Rotary Club of Amarillo — a post Eddie held in the 1950s — I bestowed Eddie with the title “Last Word Melin.” I would defy anyone to try to get the last word on Eddie in a battle quips. If you tried, you were guaranteed to lose.

He was awarded a lifetime season ticket at the Amarillo Symphony, which was the organization’s way of thanking him for all he had done to breathe life into the symphony many years earlier. “The only reason they gave this to me,” Eddie would joke, “is because they didn’t think I’d live this long.”

As the story written by the AGN’s Chip Chandler notes, Eddie stood barely 5 feet tall.

That didn’t matter. He was a titan in this community.

It is said often about community leaders that those they leave behind will miss them.

Well, that cliché does not begin to explain the impact that Eddie Melin had on those who knew him and loved him.

I loved that man.