Biggest reward is being called Dad
John Hughes is in a place he thought he’d never be — a widower of two years, a veteran in the U.S. National Guard, a stepfather to three of whom two call Dad. JOHN SERVED in the National Guard for 20 years. He was deployed in Germany shortly after the September 11 attacks, served in Iraq from 2005 to 2006 and then spent a year in Djibouti, Africa. JOHN IS a truck driver by trade, he hauls cattle around the area. He leases his truck now, because he was forced to sell his independent truck business when he had a series of strokes last year. He recently experienced another stroke, and was care-flighted to the hospital in Kansas City. HELEN has two children, Scotty and Keair, and John tries to spend as much time with them as possible.
John has no biological children of his own. Due to an operation in his childhood, he can’t have children. But, his stepdaughters have seen him as a father figure for the past 15 years.
“He is more of a father than a stepfather to me,” Helen Leckrone, his stepdaughter said. She and her sister, Tiffany, have been involved in John’s life since he met their mother, Tammy. The third stepdaughter, Marie, is not in contact with the family.
“I met their mother on a street corner,” John said with a laugh as he sat in a chair on his front lawn. He lives on a farm west of Elsmore. They met while he was visiting his rodeo partner in Arkansas City. Tiffany and Helen did not become involved in Tammy and John’s life until they were both 18, due to issues in Tammy’s earlier life.
“Tammy never told me what happened,” John said. “I felt like it was her place to tell me when she was ready.”
But, now he is the father figure in both of their lives.
On March 17, 2010, he spoke to his wife on the phone.
“We told each other thank you for putting up with each other,” John said. “That night was supposed to be our weekly date night.”
Those were the last words he would ever say to his wife, she was killed in a car wreck that evening. He heard the news at 4 a.m. the morning of the 18th, and returned to America for the funeral on the 19th. He had a layover in Chicago during the 24-hour flight.
“The strangest thing happened, I turned on my phone and got a text from her,” John said. The text read: “I’m at mom’s, I’ll be home later.”
Then, it was just John.
“I’d never thought I would be a widower,” he said. “Tammy dealt with a lot of problems that I am dealing with, she took care of everything.”
He said he does his best to be there for his kids, though they have their rough patches. But, at the end of the day, he is there when they need him, he is still their father.
“Being a stepparent is a whole different world, you get so attached to them,” he said. “You treat them like your own; you praise them like your own kids, you scold them like your own kids.”
“Now I’m seeing a specialist in Fort Worth (Texas),” he said.
But, his goal is to stay busy. He said he used to run three to five miles everyday when he was in the National Guard, and now he is trying to work back up to that.
“It’s a struggle,” he said. “If you let it get to you, you’re just going to sit around and waste away.” He turns 50 this year.
Helen lives in Savonburg, and Tiffany lives in Wichita. He said she is taking online college courses.
“She is trying to do right by herself, and I’m proud of that,” he said.
He sat in his lawn furniture, under the tree by his house, reminiscing about Keair driving his truck while sitting in his lap, and going to cattle auctions with him. He pointed out the field where he taught Scotty how to ride on a horse, even when the animal decides to run off on his own. Keair was two months old when he returned from Iraq, she is seven now and Scotty turns five this year.
“The first person I wanted to see when I got back from Iraq was my granddaughter,” he said. “She’s a papa’s girl.”
He still thinks about what his life would be like if he had his own children.
“It’s not easy, sometimes you wish you had kids of your own,” John said. But, he doesn’t call Tiffany and Helen his stepchildren, he said, and when he is needed, they still call him “Dad.”
