PHOENIX — Our colleague, Rick Scruggs, passed away suddenly this weekend at 57, apparently from natural causes.
You probably didn't know his name, but you saw his work, especially if you watched the news Sunday-Wednesday. He covered everything from crime scenes to concerts, he told stories about kids playing on swingsets and about a Native American drag queen.
Rick didn't approach assignments so much as he attacked them. He was energetic, relentlessly positive, grateful for the opportunities. He kicked off the station's pre-station Super Bowl planning meeting with a guitar solo on his red-and-black Gibson with the white whammy bar -- and it's possible the only thing he liked more than photography was that guitar. It made its appearance, intentionally or not, in many Zoom meetings.
Rick's given name was Richard, but he went mostly by Rick, and, according to a sign on his desk, at least some people called him "Ricky." In the newsroom, he was referred to either as "RickScruggs" or "Scruggs."
Rick was a slow-talkin', heavy-smokin', always-smilin' ball of energy. In his job interview with 12News, Rick was asked how he would set up lighting for an emotional story. The answer involved him popping out of his chair and placing imaginary lights around the room. It also involved an imaginary fog machine.
And that was Rick in a nutshell.
He approached his work with a sense of wonder, like stories were gifts. He covered parts of the Super Bowl for us, the Taylor Swift concerts in Glendale and innumerable shootings and memorials.
His journalism career started in 1990 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He had a path that was a classic journalism career from another era: Always on the move, always tellin' stories. His resume was a roadtrip: Wichita Falls. Salinas, California. Las Vegas. Shreveport, Louisiana. Dallas. Oklahoma City. Back to Texas and then, finally, Phoenix in October 2021.
Along the way, he picked up photographer of the year awards from the Associated Press in California and Texas. Rick's colleagues voted him one of the 12News station MVPs in September 2022 for his selfless attitude, his desire to keep learning and his drive to share what he learned with everyone he met. His work was nominated for two Emmys this year.
Rick was Texan to the core, understated and expansive at the same time. He got a car stuck while helping our sister station in Jacksonville, Florida, cover a hurricane. The car got stuck after the reporter he was with told him that a road to go down was fine, even though it wasn't. His response to his bosses when questioned about what happened was "Hell, I'll never do that again," and we wondered if he meant drive down a closed road or listen to a reporter.
He did listen to reporters, though, and talked with them, too. Rick was a dependable rock and partner who made the stories he was on better. He had the subtlety and tact to shoot a memorial service for a teenager killed in a car accident and the big elbows to get key material at a crowded crime scene.
He covered so many crimes scenes, in fact, that when the police responded to his apartment Saturday, many of the officers recognized him. "Hey," they said, "that's that news photographer."
We think Rick probably would have loved that.
Rick was one of us, and we already miss him. We'll finish this with Rick in his own words. If you're reading this, imagine a northeast Texas twang that's a little gravelly with a little bit of mischief in it.
"This may sound strange," he wrote to one of the 12News managers here who hired him away from a video production company in Texas. "But I miss the daily deadlines and day turns that news brings.
"Dang, brother, I'm a news photographer who needs news to survive."