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- Boy’s mother consoles friend who shot son
By Stan Jones
Star-Telegram Writer
This year, for the first time in his life, 12-year-old Floyd Ronald Hughes, was growing out of his “skin and boens” frame and getting over his ear infections as well as the nagging health problems that had always seemed to plague him.
His mother, Maroy Hughes, looked back on the year saying, ‘This was the best year of his life.”
“Ronnie” died Tuesday at a hospital from a bullet wound to the head.
Tuesday night, Mrs. Hughes went to see the 10-year old youngster who accidentally shot her son.
The boy was crying when Mrs. Hughes arrived. He had been drying since Monday. That day, when the boy became frightened after hearing someone open the front screen door of his house, he went to a closet and got a rifle. As he approached the door, the gun went off.
Ronnie, who had gone to the boy’s house to see if he wanted to come out to play, fell back on the front porch, where ambulance personnel found him.
With all the control that a woman seemingly born into hard luch could muster – her husband died last year when he suffered a heart attack on a Grand Prairie golf course – Mrs. Hughes consoled the crying child who had accidentally taken her son’s life.
“I told him didn’t know what happened. He just went to sleep and he’s up there with his daddy. So don’t dry no more.”
Then Mrs. Hughes cried.
Ronnie was born prematurely and spent most of childhood unable to do all of the things other children could do, his mother said. He had to have several operations for ear infections that left him weak and sickly, she said.
It wasn’t until this summer that he could get out to play with the other children, she said.
He was a student at William James Elementary. This summer, Ronnie joined the Panther Boys Club and took swimming lessons.
A graveside service was to be held at 10 a.m. today at Rose Hill. Mrs. Hughes only son will be buried next to his father, Floyd R. Hughes Sr., an army retiree.
By one of life’s twists, Mrs. Hughes was going to take Ronnie to visit his father’s grave the day he was shot, but their car was acting up and the trip had to be postponed, she said.
“I had told him we had to stop going so much to the cemetery,” she said.
Survivors include his mother, a sister, Linda Lynn Sharpe of Fort Worth; and grandparents, Mrs. Myrtle Hughes of Fort Worth and Mr. and Mrs. H.B. Sanders of Fort Worth.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas. Thursday, 28 August 1980.
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1968 - 1980 (12 years)
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