Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Wendel Sloan remembers a hot summer day driving his new, used Chrysler LeBaron convertible on its maiden voyage home to eastern New Mexico from the dealership in Lubbock.
They were cruising along Kakawate Road, about halfway between Muleshoe and Portales, when the engine died.
They coasted to the side of the road.
“Eventually, I figured out how to pop the hood,” Sloan said last week. “Since my mechanical abilities end at filling a gas tank, I may as well have been looking at the engine of a NASA spaceship.”
He sat sweating with the top down for about an hour – no cell phones then -- while cars, pickups and 18-wheelers whizzed past. Some of them gave him a friendly “beep” or a wave. But nobody stopped until Bill Joy in his pickup.
“Before he even recognized me, he had pulled up behind my scam-mobile,” Sloan said, decades later still annoyed at that used-car salesman. “He looked under the hood and spied the problem -- a frayed battery cable.
“He gave me a ride into Portales to an auto parts store. We picked up the battery cable, drove back to my car and he installed it. He then followed me into Portales to my house.”
That’s just one of many reasons Sloan, retired longtime director of media relations at Eastern New Mexico University, still considers Joy “one of the finest people I knew.”
We lost Joy in 2021 at age 85. We’re talking about him today because his family recently helped ENMU establish an endowment for the school’s head athletic trainer. That was Joy’s official job at ENMU for 25 years. He had a lot of unofficial jobs.
In addition to teaching, he was an active member of the sports booster club, a rodeo sponsor and volunteer for the Roosevelt County Fair Pioneer Board. He was also one of the all-time great bus drivers, according to Sloan.
Sloan, other ENMU personnel, students and local reporters often traveled to out-of-state ballgames in ENMU vans.
“In all those years … I don’t remember anyone but Bill Joy driving. In fact, he was legendary,” Sloan said.
Sometimes Joy would drive 24 hours straight while his passengers alternated between snacking, gaming and sleeping.
“When we pulled into town with the sun starting to rise, Bill would wake us with a joke about us sleeping beauties,” Sloan said.
There was one particularly memorable trip. The team was traveling to a game in a Colorado snowstorm.
Joy told his riders the van wasn’t going to make it up a few slick hills. They’d have to get out and push, while Joy gunned the engine.
“When we finally got past the hills and climbed back in like frozen mummies, Bill had a mischievous grin,” Sloan said.
It’s a joy to remember Bill Joy.
David Stevens is publisher of Clovis Media Inc. Email him at:
