Imagine you are covering a speech and have only 30 minutes to make deadline

Chip Hutcheson

Jul 1, 2026

What has been your best learning experience? What was the situation and what did you learn from it?

Even though it was almost 60 years ago, I’ll never forget the assignment in a reporting class at the University of Kentucky my junior year.

We walked into the classroom, and the professor said he was going to play a recording of a speech. We were to listen to it, then our assignment was to write a story about it — and we were to have it written within 30 minutes.

The speech was by Alben Barkley on April 30, 1956. Barkley had a distinguished political career, including serving as U.S. vice president in the Truman administration. After that term, he was elected as a senator from his home state of Kentucky.

His speech was at a mock Democratic convention at Washington and Lee University. He delivered a “trademark, rip-snorting, Republican-bashing speech.” He told his audience that after 42 years in national politics, he had declined a front-row chamber seat with senior senators.

Then came the unexpected. Barkley said, “I would rather be a servant in the house of the Lord than to sit in the seats of the mighty.”

But our class then heard a loud thud. Our professor stopped the tape, informing us that 78-year-old Barkley had collapsed on stage and died of a heart attack.
You would be correct in thinking that we never saw that coming.

The notes we took on his speech seemed inconsequential because Barkley had uttered perhaps the best exit line in American political history.

Imagine if you were covering that speech and had only 30 minutes to write the story to make your deadline.

Lesson learned: There are times you are not prepared for the unexpected, but learn to handle your emotions and thought processes to get the job done and done well. Learn to use pressure to your advantage rather than allowing it to trouble you.

• • •

My second-most unexpected experience was in 2008 when a friend from my hometown was one of two people named as Distinguished Alumni at Murray State University. But this one was a life lesson that applies to everyone, regardless of your path in life.

I was excited to attend the event and couldn’t wait to hear remarks by Lyle Cayce, whose influence allowed me to attend a week of sessions at the Army War College in Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, in 2004. After his military career, he has been clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit since 2010. He finished his speech, and I told my wife that it sure would be tough to follow that. Once again, I was not anticipating what would follow.

The other honoree was two-star Army General Mark Graham, who dropped out of ROTC twice, but a college advisor persuaded him to try it one more time. As inspirational as that was, what followed blew the crowd away.

As an Army colonel, life was sweet. He had a flourishing career, a beautiful wife and wonderful, smart and gifted children.

Then the unthinkable happened.

One of his sons, Kevin, was a pre-med major at the University of Kentucky and planned to be an Army doctor. But he stopped taking his depression medication and took his own life at age 21.

Five months later, another son, Jeffrey, was deployed to Iraq as a second lieutenant. Three months later, a remotely detonated improvised explosive device killed Jeffrey.

Mark Graham wanted to quit, was ready to quit — he had lost two sons to two different battles.

His wife read her daily devotional book and related a message to him one morning that everything changed. Rather than being bitter — rather than quitting — they embarked on a mission to serve soldiers and their families in the battle against suicide and help soldiers with their mental and physical health.

It became clear that we all need to be surrounded with a strong support system. We need people in our lives who will tell us what we need to hear, even though it isn’t necessarily what we want to hear — just like Mark Graham’s wife did!

Chip Hutcheson is the retired publisher of The Times Leader in Princeton, Kentucky. He was NNA president in 2015. He currently serves as a content strategist for Kentucky Today, the online news website of the Kentucky Baptist Convention. Email him at chiphutcheson@yahoo.com