So sorry to hear this. This has NOT been a good news day in more ways than one.

Just for you...

Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong-Gone Fishin'

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George Jones - Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes?
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Sorry to hear this for family and friends.

And personal condolences to you, Betty. I know you were his friend.

Vaya con dios Amigo. You will be missed, you will be remembered.

I'm somewhat at a loss for words. Lloyd was just one of those guys you assumed and took for granted that would conquer any ailment thrown his way. It wasn't unusual to be talking at 3:30 A.M. with him about fishing, the circular nature of political philosophy, radio, the Packers, Ronald Reagan, the state of modern politics or just listening to him tell war stories. He was, first and foremost a Southern Gentleman, but he was also a mentor and friend to me. It was an honor to call him my friend and humbling to hear him sound genuinely happy to talk to me. The world was a better place when he was here. R.I.P. Lloyd. I'll look you up on the other side.

Lloyd loved Flannery O'Connor ,just as I do, and we often discussed her.One of Flannery's most famous short stories is "A Good Man is Hard to Find"...Lloyd was anything but "The Misfit" but he certainly was a good man.I think both he and Flannery would enjoy these thoughts by her..This is for you my friend.Hope the fishing is good up there.Boy are we going to miss you.

“If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.”

“I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”

“The Catholic novelist in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development.”

“Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.”

“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.”

“I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.”

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”

“Grace changes us and change is painful".”

Whether you agreed or disagreed, you knew his convictions were true and sincere and his heart was good. Those people are few and far between. He could have sold out, but never did. He will be missed.

He was a member of a dying breed- a guy you might disagree with on politics, but was infinitely loveable as a human being. His charm and wit will be missed.

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Michael Silence's wife Mary Anne Carter on her friend Lloyd Daugherty:

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I don't think Clark will object too much if I scoop myself (damn that Wednesday publication date!) and post this unedited version as I head out the door to Lloyd's funeral:

Lloyd Daugherty left friends on both sides of political divide

By Betty Bean
In mid-September, a surgeon came to Lloyd Daugherty’s room at Vanderbilt University Medical Center to amputate his left middle finger. A massive infection was threatening his already compromised immune system, and Daugherty (who lost his left leg 17 years ago, also to complications of diabetes) was not only fully awake while it happened, but cracked jokes with the surgeon who sawed off his finger. His lifelong friend and fiancé Keitha Kelley remembers him saying he’d have to cancel his piano concert.
“He said it didn’t matter because he was too much of a gentleman to use that finger anyway,” said Kelley, who had known the Tennessee Conservative Union co-founder, political commentator/strategist and radio personality since they were students at Karns High School. She worked with him when he was on the radio and spent a good chunk of the past couple of years helping to care for him. She says the job’s not done yet.
Daugherty, 55, had been hospitalized for more than two months prior to his death Friday, Oct. 3 in Nashville. The first few weeks, he was at Park West Hospital in Knoxville, where he underwent a high-risk balloon surgery to repair his damaged heart. His room in intensive care became a destination point for dozens of friends and political allies, some of whom came to keep him company, others to say their good-byes. He kept an eye on the political scene, and issued a press release from his hospital bed endorsing Chief Justice Gary Wade to be retained on the Tennessee Supreme Court (in 2013, while hospitalized, he did the voiceover for a TV spot condemning mountaintop coal removal).
Wade won his election and Daugherty survived his surgery, but was transferred to Vanderbilt for another, even riskier heart procedure.
He spent the last weeks of his life in the hospital, or in Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Center. He had struggled with health issues for 30 years, meeting every setback and struggle with grace, dignity and humor, coupled with a determination that was an inspiration to everyone he met.
Daugherty became politically active in conservative causes when he was a student at the University of Tennessee, served as Southern Field Director of for “Citizens for Reagan,” in 1979-’80. He turned down a job with Reagan administration to care for his father, Lloyd C. Daugherty Sr., who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
He was a campaign director for “Southerners for Reagan” in 1984, and in 1992 was a senior consultant to the Bush/Quayle campaign on southern sporting issues.
The Daugherty-led TCU battled Lamar Alexander (for being insufficiently conservative), fought against a state income tax, led a successful effort to unseat a state Supreme Court justice whom Daugherty believed had not upheld the death penalty and called for the disgraced U.S. Rep. Scott DeJarlais to step down.
Over time, he buried the hatchet with Alexander, who was one of the first of Tennessee’s public figures to issue a statement after Daugherty’s death:
“Lloyd Daugherty was a principled man, conservative to his core, who loved our country and did his best to help all of us remember its founding principles. I was glad to call him a friend.”
In recent years, Daugherty co-hosted “The Voice,” a radio talk show featuring conversations about politics, music, food and Southern humor. He was also the host, president and founder of “The Dixie Angler,” a radio show about fishing that took him all over the South and spawned the Dixie Angler Network – which brings us to something he wanted Kelley to do after his death.
“There was a tech named Jeff Garrett (at the rehabilitation center) who was so good to Lloyd. He’d been in the service and was such a good person, so kind and helpful. On his days off, he’d take underprivileged kids fishing, and Lloyd told him he’d give him some fishing tackle. One of the last things he asked me to do was make sure that got done. I’m going to see to it that Lloyd’s fishing tackle makes it to Nashville for Jeff.”

I was a fan of Lloyd’s radio show and a guest twice. He was a good host, open to diverse points of view, and an articulate commentator. He will be missed.