As he sat on a white bucket during Monday's junior varsity baseball game at Clinton, watching the horizon inhale the sun, Joe Joy began to hum, "Amazing Grace."
He stared wistfully at the baseball diamond as the Elk players in front of him ran the bases and fielded ground balls — like so many of the other athletes he coached during his long coaching tenure, which began in 1978 at Dumas High School in Texas.
It was as if the realization had finally stuck in his brain that, earlier in the day, he had tendered his resignation as a coach and teacher at Elk City High School — a job he proudly worked for 30 of his 34 total years of coaching and teaching high school students.
Joy plans to retire from his work as an educator at the school year's end and as of May 24, will no longer be a fixture on sidelines and classrooms in Elk City.
For full coverage, quotes from coach Joy and his wife, Pam, pick up a copy of Wednesday's Daily Elk Citian.