TUSCALOOSA | Practically all Americans of a certain age can answer the question, “Where were you when John Kennedy died?”

So, too, can most Alabama football fans over the age of 30 or so when asked where they were when Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant died Jan. 26, 1983 at the age of 69.

I was in Montgomery covering a special session of the Alabama Legislature in the old Capitol building when a wire service reporter passing me in a musty hallway said, “Well, I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you today.”

He told me Bryant was dead, and I immediately went to work collecting the thoughts and reminiscences of the politicians, starting with Gov. George C. Wallace, who called Bryant “a man among men” and added that he prayed that God “will bless and keep his family -- [widow] Mary Harmon, the children, grandchildren and all at this time of great sadness.”

Tuscaloosa State Sen. Ryan DeGraffenried, who died of a heart attack last year, announced Bryant’s death on the floor of the state senate in an emotional statement in which he called Bryant “a great man and great personal friend.”

DeGraffenried said that his then 7-year-old son, who is now a Tuscaloosa attorney, had met Bryant for the first time the Saturday before his death.

“My little boy idolized him,” DeGraffenried on the senate floor. “He has a framed, signed picture of him hanging on the wall above his bed.

“Just last Saturday,” he continued, as tears began to trickle down cheeks in the stately old Capitol, “I took my son hunting down on Paul Jr.’s farm and when he went by the house there was Coach Bryant eating breakfast. You wouldn’t believe how excited my son was [to meet him].”

Cullman Rep. Tom Drake, who played football at Alabama before Bryant arrived, but served briefly as an assistant coach under him, also had a poignant story to tell.

Bryant had called him and said he was coming to Montgomery in a few days, said Drake, who was also an attorney and professional wrestler going by the name of “The Cullman Comet.”

“When I talked to him I kidded him about getting one of those ‘315’ commemorative rings [for setting the record for most college football games won as a head coach] and reminded him that it was me and [former Tuscaloosa Sen. Bert Bank] who named Bryant-Denny Stadium after him,” Drake said.

“I kidded him and told him if he didn’t get me one of those rings we were going to rename it Dye-Denny Stadium [after then Auburn Coach Pat Dye] and he said he’d be sure and get me the ring. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever see that ring or not.”

While I was feverishly calling in up-dates through the day -- we didn’t have computers or the Internet then -- for a special edition, City Hall reporter Ken Stickney, who would later become our editorial page editor before moving on to Monroe, La., where he is the managing editor of The News Star, was busy reporting on the home front.

“I never handled a story where people in high places were so quick to respond to it,” he said. “We got the White House, all the senators, very influential people from all walks of life in a matter of hours.”

Stickney also covered the burial in Birmingham’s Elmwood Cemetery three days later.

“You talk about being in the dark ages as a reporter, but I was out at the cemetery and the grave site itself was maybe a half mile from the front, where the only telephone was -- we didn’t have cell phones back then, of course -- and we were holding the paper to get the service in,” Stickney said.

“The service was delayed greatly because of the time it took to get from Tuscaloosa and three times I ran from the grave site to the phone -- and I was in wingtips -- to tell them that he ain’t here. The third time I ran back to the phone and picked it up, the funeral procession turned in and I had to run that half mile back, in my wingtips.

“Then, of course, I had to call in my story and dictate it to [former News reporter] Doris Flora.”

Stickney remembers the burial ceremony as being very somber, but the thing he remembers most is one of the funeral home employees telling him about a young boy approaching as dirt was being thrown on the casket.

“He said this little boy came up in a toboggan-type cap and wanted his hat buried with the Bear,” he said. “He wouldn’t tell me if he allowed it or not, but I often wonder if that toboggan is down there with Bear Bryant.”

Reach Tommy Stevenson at tommy.stevenson@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0194.