When I was offered the chance in 1972 to return to Hilo as Big Island correspondent for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, I asked the man I would replace, Jack Bryan, how it was to compete against Hugh Clark of the Honolulu Advertiser.

"Hugh’s a friendly guy, pretty laid-back," Jack said with a twinkle in his eye.

Friendly, yes. Hugh and I became pals and kept in touch for 43 years across many miles.

But laid-back? Maybe when you got a few beers in him on Friday nights at the press club. In competition for news, however, he was as laid-back as a Tyrannosaurus rex chasing his dinner.

Hugh hammered the rest of us with relentless scoops on politics, crime and volcanoes. While competitors recharged at night, Hugh covered football and basketball games.

His legendary reporting skills and work ethic were well remembered in the obituaries following his death last week at 75 from cancer.

When we spoke a few weeks ago to reminisce and say goodbye, my thoughts turned more to the warm heart and giving nature Hugh showed me so many times, with one memory especially standing out.

In April 1973, a few months after I took the new job, he and I drove to Kona together to cover a County Council meeting held in a beach park pavilion.

The meeting was barely underway just before 10:30 a.m. when the ground shook hard.

We knew from the buckling of the pavilion’s thick concrete that it wasn’t a routine volcanic earthquake; this one would do major damage.

Working for the afternoon newspaper, I still had an hour to get a story in that day’s edition and ran to a phone in the park office, hurriedly calling police and Civil Defense for information.

Hugh dialed furiously on the phone next to me and I rolled my eyes; the guy had 12 hours until his deadline for the morning Advertiser and he was already in high gear.

Then he started passing me notes with the information he’d gotten and I realized he wasn’t working on his own story, but helping out a competitor as my deadline fast approached.

With our combined notes, I was able to quickly put together a decent story on the 6.2-magnitude earthquake that caused dozens of injuries, collapsed two buildings in Hilo, damaged hundreds of homes and closed major highways.

As I thanked Hugh profusely while we sped back to Hilo over the Saddle Road, he shrugged and said, "I’m sure you’d do the same for me."

I’m not so sure I would have before, but I certainly would after and I remembered the moment many times over the years as I tried to pay forward his extraordinary act of professional generosity.

Rest in peace, old friend.

Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com or blog.volcanicash.net.