Not long ago a couple of good buddies of mine, Jimmy Cox and Scott Bowerbank were killed.
You've probably heard the story. They were up in a television helicopter covering a police pursuit in central Phoenix when they got tangled up with another t.v. station's chopper. Both of the birds came crashing to the ground. My buddies and the two other guys in the other station's helicopter were killed.

It was the worst day of my career!

I know that much has been said and written about the men involved--that they were wonderful guys--pros in every sense of the word--funny, talented , personable--all true. But there was so much more.

Now I'm not going to lie to you, on several occasions Jimmy and I stood jawbone-to-jawbone, screaming at each other in the station's back parking lot, both itching for the other man to throw the first punch.
Entire months could go by when Jimmy and I were so pissed off at each that we weren't even speaking.
I like to think we had a special relationship. A relationship that was literally forged by fire, Arizona's monster Rodeo-Chediski fire, Southern California's deadly wildland infernos, and the 911 attack on the World Trade Center. Side by side Jimmy and I were ringside for each and every one them.

We often fought like hot-blooded brothers and we sobbed in each others arms at places like Ground Zero in New York. We made up dirty lyrics to songs on the radio and laughed hysterically as we drove tens of thousands of miles through monsoon storms and snowy blizzards.
Once during a particularly potent, punishing and violent cloud burst out on the west side of Phoenix, Jimmy and I damn near got hit by lightening.

We always had an adventure.

Not many people know this, but one of Jimmy's most endearing talents: his uncanny ability to imitate the voice of almost every cartoon character ever created. Hearing him do the little space alien from Bugs Bunny cartoons at three in the morning after driving for 15 hours straight, well let's just say, it never failed to make me laugh.
Yeah we wanted to kick each others ass on more than one occasion. I'm a complete slob and Jimmy was always organized to the point of anal obsession. He called me "Captain Chaos" and I always saw him as the "All-American Kid."

But in the magical way of "the yin and the yang," together we also produced, to my mind, some of the finest t.v. journalism broadcast anywhere in the world during the last decade--be it Ronald Reagan's funeral from Simi Valley to Florida's 2000 presidential election scandal from Palm Beach.

Jimmy and I were in Oklahoma City covering Timothy McVeigh's execution, in Salt Lake exploring the bizarre kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, and we also chased polygamist child abusers from the Arizona strip to the mountains of Colorado to the wind swept plains of west Texas.

Indeed James Alan Cox had a major hand in our Emmy and Edward R. Murrow Award winning documentary "Colorado City and the Underground Railroad"--a piece of journalism that I think most objective observers would agree helped change the course of Arizona history.
Jim Cox was a brilliant shooter, a stand-up guy and a damn good friend.

And at this point I'd give just about everything I own for one more of those crazed all night drive, one more naughty little sing-a-long, yeah and maybe even one more of those shouting matches in the back parking lot.

But more than anything else, I wish I had the opportunity to tell you, Jim, just how much I really loved you....mw