Opinion: Wayland Thomas: Workhorse won't be soon forgotten

Wayland Thomas had a full life.

He drove a houseboat on the Mississippi River in 2018, caught a 42-pound uku snapper last March in Hawaii, went parasailing in the Bahamas with his granddaughters in 2011, even made a wooden rocking horse, ridden by every kid - and maybe a few adults -- who've ever been to Chris and Kye Thomas' house in Clovis.

He also managed a 44-year newspaper career that started when he was 13. His first paper route had 50 customers, which he soon doubled.

"It took me only about an hour to make my deliveries because I had a motor scooter," he told a reporter.

From there, he learned to run a printing press and master just about every other job associated with the Clovis News Journal and Portales News-Tribune.

"When I came to Clovis in 1990, I don't think I'd have made it without Wayland," former CNJ Publisher Bill Salter said. "I never found anything ... that he could not handle and handle well."

Thomas became publisher himself, first at the Pampa, Texas, newspaper in 1994, then at the Portales paper in 1997 before retiring in 2001.

Retirement, it seems meant something different to Wayland Thomas than it does to most.

At 58, he was just getting warmed up, announcing plans to go RVing with his family and fine-tune his woodworking skills.

"You could look around our house and see the beautiful work he did," Chris Thomas said about his dad's furniture-making skills.

"He built us an entertainment center, refinished our kitchen table ..."

And there is that rocking horse.

"He made that 30 years ago, before we had any kids. My wife (Kye) saw one in a window and asked him, 'Do you think you could make one of those?' He said he probably could and he got some blueprints or something and it's still in our living room. There have been several people since then that wanted him to make them one, but he said one was enough."

Chris remembers his dad was always busy. "He was just a worker," he said. "He never asked anybody to do anything he wouldn't do.

"Ever since I was little, he had a print shop in the back yard (at home). He'd work at the News Journal then come home and print all kinds of stuff. They had a horse sale in Roswell for years and he made their catalogue. He did the (county) fair book."

When Wayland Thomas retired from the newspaper, he donated his home printing equipment to a mission in Mexico through his church and embraced family life full time. For example:

"Granddad was like a father to me," said grandson Carlon Hickman. "He helped raise me and just finished helping me fix up the house I just bought. We spent many hours working together side by side and I learned a lot from him."

Daughter Sheila Riden remembered playing endless board games and card games with her energetic dad who was always "pecking his finger or bouncing his leg," because he couldn't sit still.

Other family members will long remember Thomas' love of dogs, his "environmental gadgets," and his laser engraving business. The family rate for engraving was famously "a minimum $5,000" some of them joked ... but "His collection department was rather weak."

His was a full life, alright.

Wayland Thomas died at his Clovis home on Dec. 9. He was 77.

His family - and his newspaper family - will forever remember.

- David Stevens

Publisher