that his friends included dedicated agnostics,hard-shell Baptists [Editor’s Note: and at least oneFAILED Baptist], Buddhists, Catholics, converts toIslam, and probably a few atheists.

Nyle had a gentle strength and a youthful spirit.People who met him in recent years would havebeen surprised to learn he was over 75. Perhapsthat was due to his quiet sense of humor thatescaped via the gleam in his hazel eyes.

Though he worked as a news photographer forover 30 years, Nyle was best known professionallyfor his work in The Gun Culture. It’s been said thathe raised firearms photography from the mundaneto the dynamic, applying decades of dramatic-news-coverage experience to the shooting sports.And it’s true. He pioneered the use of remote cam-eras to capture muzzle-end views of action shoot-ers, and as long as I worked with him, he neverworried about his equipment. “If it happens it hap-pens” he would say, but the truth is, nobody want-ed to be the one who shot Nyle Leatham’s camera.

However, not everybody got The Word. I recallone of our Winter Range assignments when anofficious official assailed Nyle for his presence ina shooting bay. It turned out that the match direc-tor (a good shooter, but a poor manager) had neg-lected to inform the ROs that Nyle was coveringthe event for a national publication. It was the firstand last time that happened!

Nyle was like that. He had the rare ability toinspire others to match his standards. It wasimportant to us that we gain the respect of NyleLeatham. You cannot teach or learn that kind ofinspiration: either it’s present or it’s not.

So here we are: suddenly left in a world with-out the life force we knew as Nyle Leatham. We’llget through it, but not very quickly, and not per-manently. Nyle simply left too great a chasm intoo many lives for that huge gap ever to be filled.

Inevitably, we’re left to wonder why so great aspirit and so thoroughly decent a human beingwas taken from us far, far too soon. I can onlyconjure one plausible explanation:

One glorious November sunrise (or perhaps itwas a sunset), God turned to Saint Peter and said,“We should have someone record this beautifulscene forever.”

Done deal: Saint Pete consulted the goldenpages of his Heavenly Rolodex, flipped to Photog-raphers, and The Word went down. When Theyneeded the best photographer on Planet Earth,with an artist’s eye, a father’s heart and an angel’ssoul, They called for Nyle B. Leatham.

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