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I heard the news last Saturday morning on National Public Radio. Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary, had died of colon cancer. He was 53.

White House press secretaries come and go; some are forgettable, others memorable. Tony was decidedly the latter. His tenure was cut short by illness and lasted only 17 months, but he was special.

I knew Tony in his early days. He'd graduated from Davidson College in 1977 and moved to Greensboro to launch his journalism career in 1979. He was lanky, funny, a bushy-haired kid who looked more like a college sophomore than an editorial writer.

But Tony was smart and had a fine feel for words. He wrote editorials for The Greensboro Record, the evening paper, and I wrote for The Greensboro Daily News, the morning paper. (The papers merged in the 1980s.)

Our offices were in the same corner of the building and only doors apart. But our politics were miles apart. The Record's editorial page had a conservative flavor; The Daily News was moderate to liberal.

That never mattered with Tony. He was light-hearted, not rigid or doctrinaire. Besides, we seldom discussed politics.

He later moved to bigger newspapers in Virginia and eventually to the nation's capital. There, his career blossomed as both a print and broadcast journalist.

Over the years we lost touch for no reason except life gets busy. But it was easy to keep up with Tony because he was a commentator on Fox television. He'd always written well for newspapers and proved equally adept with words behind a microphone.

In April 2006, he became President George W. Bush's press secretary. Daily press briefings, formerly confrontational or bone-dry, suddenly improved. Even reporters who disliked his conservative politics liked Tony. He was that kind of person - amiable, smiling, nice.

But I'm skipping a chapter. Tony's first White House job had been in 1991. President George H.W. Bush had hired him to be a speechwriter. Shortly after his appointment, I wrote a hometown-journalist-makes-good column.

A few days later, a long letter arrived from Tony, saying thanks for the column and wittily describing life as a speechwriter. He clearly liked his boss, the president. Tony wrote that whenever he sprinkled jokes in the president's speech, Bush Sr. would make them funnier. Until then, I'd never thought of Bush as a funny man.

Last Saturday night, Fox News aired a touching tribute to Tony. It featured friends from the media, the White House and even President George H.W. Bush via telephone.

Tony's professional achievements needed no tribute because he'd scaled the heights of journalism. So his friends talked about Tony the person - his kindness, his beaming smile, his religious faith, his love for his wife and three children, his sensitivity to other people's problems, his determination to fight cancer and refusal to complain about it.

Washington is a tough town full of hard-driving, sharp-elbowed journalists. Tony softened it. "He didn't have a mean bone in his body," one journalist said. Others said they never heard him say an unkind word about anybody.

Tony was given only 53 years. He lived them well. I'm grateful our paths crossed.

Rosemary Roberts writes a Friday column. E-mail: rmroberts@triad.rr.com.