{"id":72479,"date":"2025-12-02T04:50:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/72479\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T04:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:50:12","slug":"family-friends-remember-former-lubbock-anchor-keith-williams-as-great-storyteller-better-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/72479\/","title":{"rendered":"Family, friends remember former Lubbock anchor Keith Williams as great storyteller, better man"},"content":{"rendered":"

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Family members and former colleagues are remembering one of Lubbock\u2019s best storytellers after Keith Williams, a news reporter and anchor for KAMC in the 1980s, died last week<\/a> after being attacked by a bison at Caprock Canyons State Park.<\/p>\n

After the unexpected tragedy, hundreds of people reached out to his family to share the impact he or his stories made in their lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, one of the best radio and television reporters ever in Lubbock,\u201d Don McBeath, a former colleague and friend of more than 50 years, said.<\/p>\n

County Judge Curtis Parrish, who worked for several years as Williams\u2019 photographer, said he was \u201cprobably one of the best journalists that I have ever worked with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams began his long career in communication on the radio, working for KSEL and KLLL, before joining KAMC as a senior reporter and anchor for much of the 1980s.<\/p>\n

His daughter, Emma Williams, said he told stories that mattered, whether covering last-minute Christmas shopping at the mall or documenting major historic events, like the 25th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing around him was almost the joy of doing this job and traveling all over Lubbock, all over West Texas, and quite literally all over the world covering stories with Keith. I miss him,\u201d Parrish said.<\/p>\n

Parrish was with Keith when he got the call to move to Washington D.C. to serve as Representative Larry Combest\u2019s press secretary.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy earliest memories were going to my dad\u2019s work and running around the Capitol,\u201d Emma said.<\/p>\n

McBeath calls Keith an excellent writer and a walking thesaurus, with his storytelling skills seeping into even his famous Capitol tours.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he pointed to a stain on the stone steps. And he said, \u2018you know what that is?\u2019 Of course, I would have no idea. And he said, \u2018well, that\u2019s where some senator shot and killed another senator over a woman in 1870 something,\u2019\u201d McBeath said.<\/p>\n

He stayed in D.C. for the next 35 years<\/a>, working in communications and on committees ranging from the Senate Committee on Agriculture to serving as the press secretary for the USDA.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seeing how he was able to handle things and be the calm in every storm and have some of the most important people in the world and government look towards him of, what do I say next? That was just really inspiring to me,\u201d Emma Williams said.<\/p>\n

His sister, Susan, said he made time at least once a year to visit his hometown.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a West Texan at heart. And he never forgot where his roots were. And he always told me, he said, when I really, really finally retire, I\u2019m moving back to Lubbock and he did that,\u201d McBeath said.<\/p>\n

He moved back to Lubbock this summer, reconnecting with old friends.<\/p>\n

Emma said he had several activities planned for her Thanksgiving visit to see him, including going to see Caprock Canyons State Park. She said they were walking around, keeping a safe distance from wildlife, when a bison approached them unexpectedly and attacked.<\/p>\n

She said while he was taken from the story of his own life too soon, she\u2019s choosing to remember his favorite chapters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all else, my dad was an extraordinary man. He lived an extraordinary life. He was proud of where he\u2019s from, he\u2019s proud to be from Lubbock, and that\u2019s the legacy I want him to be remembered for,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams was 70 years old.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Family members and former colleagues are remembering one of Lubbock\u2019s best storytellers after Keith…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[33888,3650,36216,18375,36219,36218,4144,36217,10459,1522,2436,2002,36224,541,36212,36210,36215,36223,36220,36214,36221,36222,2549,241,168,170,169,97,238,2187,36211,33889,8510,10751,36213,2186,27,2001,2430],"class_list":["post-72479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-anchor","tag-attack","tag-better","tag-bison","tag-canyons","tag-caprock","tag-career","tag-colleague","tag-communication","tag-county","tag-curtis-parrish","tag-dc","tag-don-mcbeath","tag-family","tag-former","tag-friends","tag-great","tag-hometown","tag-kamc","tag-keith-williams","tag-klll","tag-ksel","tag-legacy","tag-life","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-man","tag-park","tag-radio","tag-remember","tag-reporter","tag-state","tag-story","tag-storyteller","tag-television","tag-texas","tag-washington","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}