Mel Gregory, like his late wife, Linda, will be missed as a cheerleader for Wichita

A year and a half after his wife’s tragic death while shooting photos on the sidelines of a football game, Mel Gregory has died.

The 84-year-old had continued photographing school sports and League 42 players as he and his wife, Linda, had volunteered to do for years.

“We’re going to miss both of them as cheerleaders for our community,” said Lynn Rogers, former lieutenant governor and state treasurer. “They were a team.”

Gregory also continued his legal career until only a few months ago, when declining health forced him to stop. His last appearance in court was in a seersucker jacket, bowtie and fluorescent orange sneakers.

“That perfectly encapsulates him,” said fellow lawyer Stacy Ortega.

She said her friend of 35 years had a cheerful demeanor and an engaging personality, but his service to the legal profession and beyond particularly set him apart.

He’d volunteer shooting pictures for the bar association “and a million other ways.”

Ortega said that almost all lawyers younger than she is talk about how Gregory would offer advice or help with whatever they needed starting out.

Gregory practiced a variety of cases through the years, particularly in family and personal injury law. He often was a guardian ad litem for children in personal injury suits.

“He was truly known for representing people who really needed it,” Ortega said.

He’d help in domestic violence cases for free “or for ridiculously small amounts of money,” she said. “He was very invested.”

Ideas and ideals

In addition to caring about people, Rogers said Gregory cared about ideas and ideals.

“He really was thinking about things that were important.”

One topic of perpetual interest, Rogers said, was how politicians weren’t “serving people but serving themselves.”

“The community was very important to him.”

The dyed-in-the-wool liberal, as Ortega called Gregory, placed a high value on social programs to help society.

“He had very strong political views, but he didn’t, I guess, exclude people who didn’t share them,” she said.

As former Eagle sports columnist Bob Lutz put it, Gregory “had a viewpoint, and wasn’t afraid to share it.”

Lutz met the Gregorys when he started League 42, a nonprofit youth baseball league.

“Mel really helped us with his legal expertise in those early stages of trying to start a nonprofit,” Lutz said.

Then there were the thousands of photographs he and his wife took of players.

“He always felt like he had a job to do when he came out to League 42,” Lutz said.

He might be chatting with someone before a game, but then Gregory would say, “I gotta get on the field.”

Ortega volunteered to help wrangle the League 42 players for photos and would watch the Gregorys work with the children.

“He and Linda together made them feel like they were so important. . . . They would just stand up taller.”

Lutz said the loss of both Gregorys is a setback for the league.

Just as the players wore a “LG” patch on their uniforms for the season after Linda Gregory died, they’ll wear a “MG” one this season.

Without either of them there, Lutz said, “It’ll be very different.”

‘Kind of ornery’

Gregory spent his whole life in Wichita except for when he was in the Army and stationed in Germany. He was older when he became a lawyer, said his daughter, Tara, who was about 10 when her father went to law school.

“He just decided at some point he was going to do the thing he always wanted to do.”

She said protecting people’s rights was huge to her father.

He grew up poor and was a self-taught photographer, unlike his wife, who was a professional.

Tara Gregory said her father was “kind of ornery.”

“He drove us nuts as kids.”

If she and her sister, Brenda Barvais, took too long in the bathroom or getting out of bed, he might sound an air horn.

“He was just always kind of joking with us.”

Former Eagle high school sports writer Joanna Chadwick, a journalism teacher at Derby High School, said Gregory was a raconteur, too.

“I swear he’s got a story for everything.”

She met the Gregorys through Twitter and, eventually, in person. She said they became like grandparents to her three mixed-race sons.

“We talked a lot about race,” Chadwick said. “We just became really good friends.”

Like biological grandparents, the Gregorys would step in to watch one of the boy’s games if his parents were across town at another child’s game, or they’d watch the youngest if the others were playing.

“They always referred to him as Mr. Mel. Mr. Mel and Miss Linda. . . . It was just special.”

Tara Gregory concurred that her father was quite the storyteller, even as he was ill in the hospital. Wrestling was on TV one day, and he relayed a story his daughter had never heard before about his mother going to a wrestling match in person and hitting one of the wrestlers, Gorgeous George, on the head with a chair.

“He was just always coming up with stuff like that.”

Pets, pictures and kids

There will be a Wichita memorial service for Gregory for sometime in the future, Tara Gregory said. She said her father was not the kind of guy who would have wanted flowers to commemorate his passing, so the family will establish memorials for his and his wife’s three passions: pets, kids and photography.

That includes the Kansas Humane Society, League 42 and photography scholarships through the Linda Gregory Scholarship Fund at Fidelity Bank.

Steve Martin, the head football coach at Northwest High School, said Gregory did more than take pictures.

“He was such a great mentor for our kids.”

For instance, Gregory spent one-on-one time with a student who was interested in photography.

He said both Gregorys went out of their way to help people — especially kids.

That student “is just one of thousands of people who they’ve helped along their journey.”

“They actually genuinely cared about people.”

Ortega said the Gregorys both had a love for rescue dogs, especially dachshunds. Once, she said, they went to a rescue to pick out one, and instead “this little chihuahua chose them.”

She said one dog couldn’t walk for a while, so the Gregorys bought a stroller for him.

“They always were looking to help those little dogs.”

Mel Gregory also loved being outdoors, Ortega said, and was devoted to the Flint Hills.

“Mel and I shared the magic of that place.”

Tara Gregory said her father, who also had five step-children and numerous grandchildren, was in hospice at the end of his life and comfortable.

She said he told his children he was ready to go.

“He wanted to see Linda.”