Welcome
to
Permian High School
Class of 1974
We're proud to celebrate our roots in Odessa, Texas
Mailding Adress: PO Box 74 Graford, TX 76449
We are all blessed in knowing each other and even though we are apart,
there remains a huge network of love and support from each of us to one
another out there across the country. Always know that no matter what,
you are loved, you are cared for by those of us who grew up together and
who have made it down the path of life so far in our lives.
Stephen Hal Looney
07.19.1955 - 05.30.2023
Stephen (Steve) Hal Looney, 68, of Austin, Texas passed away on Thursday, May 30, 2024. Steve was born on July 19, 1955, in Tulsa, Oklahoma to Sara Jean and Hal Looney. Shortly after Steve was born, the family moved to Odessa, Texas where he attended Burnet Elementary, Bonham Jr. High, and Permian High School.
Steve graduated from the University of Texas-Austin with a degree in Corporate Communications. He had a successful professional career while being employed over the years with Dell Technologies, Hoovers (Division of Dunn and Bradstreet), and Oracle. Steve was an avid sports enthusiast both actively and as a spectator. During his Jr. High and High School years Steve played football (Quarterback Position) for the Bonham Owls and the Mighty Mojo football teams. He led his teams to numerous victories, while setting several school records at the time. In addition to his love of football,
Steve had a passion for the game of golf. He was a very viable player, winning many golf tournaments over the years. He was a member of the PGA Amateur Golf Association and had the pleasure to play various courses throughout the US. Steve was a Native American Indian of the Chickasaw Indian Nation where he was an active voting citizen and had a great interest in his family heritage. Steve had a huge heart and desire for helping people, and was always willing to share his experience, strength, and hope.
Steve is preceded in death by his son, Stephen Hal Looney II, his mother Sara Jean Frisch Looney, his father, Hal Aldrich Looney, grandparents, Florence and Solomon Frisch, Eula and W.V. Looney, and uncle and aunt Victor N. and Virginia Looney, as well as other loved ones.
Left to cherish Steve’s memory include his sister, Stephanie Looney Brooks and husband Layne Brooks of Wylie, Texas, his niece Sara Jean Todd and wife Lindsay Lewis Todd of McKinney, Texas, his nephew, Hal Todd and wife Delaney Todd, and great-niece Audrey Todd of Royce City, in addition to many individuals Steve called his family members by choice.
The Looney family extends their deepest gratitude to the Hospice Austin’s Christopher House and St. David’s rehabilitation and medical center for providing great care to Steve during his final days.
A celebration of life for Stephen will be held Saturday, June 8, 2024 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM at Fuller Sheffield Funeral Services, 2808 E Martin Luther King Jr, Austin, TX 78702, followed by a reception from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.
Note from Mike Herron
THOUGHTS
My very good friend and Quarterback (QB) Stephen Hal Looney (Steve) passed away this past July from complications related to liver cancer. I played Center (OC) down and in front of Steve for seven years at Burnet Elementary, Bonham Junior High and our three years at Permian High School. Like most things athletic Steve was great at, he had the best hands a Center could ever have touch his bottom. You could say it was a very intimate relationship. During those football years, I conservatively estimate that we exchanged over 10,000 offensive snaps during our practices and games. In all those snaps, we only fumbled once during the 1973 game against Abilene Cooper and it was my fault. Of course, Steve being the stud athlete he was, he snagged the bad snap out of the air, keeping our seven-year record of no lost fumbles intact. In the process though, he took three solid hits from Cooper defenders. I took my chewing on the field from him like a man but, HE faded Coach Wilkin’s ire for me during film the next day like the leader and ace he was. How he did it was typical Looney Tunes. It left Wilkins speechless and was the funniest incident during a film session of my football career.
Steve and I rekindled our QB/OC friendship during the ’74 team reunion in Austin held for Randy McCallum who we also lost to cancer a few months later. We stayed in touch, played golf as often as possible and by 2015, he was showing me the very best that Las Vegas had to offer. We shared the finest food, concerts, three Super Bowl parties and the best golf to be found. And just like the handsome, sharp dressed and always one of the coolest guys on the floor, Steve was the best Blackjack player I ever sat at a table with. And like in Odessa and Austin, it seemed everywhere we went in Vegas, most knew his name and more knew his game.
In 2022, I was diagnosed with Stage Three lung cancer. At a low point for me during my treatment, Steve Looney paid me a surprise visit. He came to the house and just like one night in 1973 when we were behind, bickering in the huddle and even questioning our ability to overcome; he stepped into the huddle and said, “Shut up, I’m the only one talkin! We’re gonna take this ball, drive down the field, score and win this damn game!” And that’s what we did.
He scolded me that day at the house for feeling sorry for myself. He told me to get up off my butt, get active again and get back on the golf course! And that’s what I did. Four months later, my endzone score was a win in Vegas with him, my son and my golf pro playing eighteen holes at the Wynn Golf Course. I will always remember and cherish breaking out in a full-blown man-cry in the middle of the seventeenth fairway glad to be alive, hugging my QB and so happy to be side by side with him again with my back against a wall.
I’m still on two legs and every now and then I feel somewhat guilty. You see, a Center always breaks out of the huddle and reaches the line of scrimmage before his Quarterback. I truly thought I’d reach life’s line of scrimmage before him. I wasn’t able to encourage and get him through the way he did me. I tried but, he ran out of time. Cancer can be the rawest of opponents.
I’m not sure how to finish my thoughts on my QB except to say I love you and miss you! I could never do you justice but, maybe I’ll just make one more play call for you in the huddle.
“RIGHT 18 PITCH, ON 2, ON 2, READY BREAK!”
50/mh