Everyone in one shape or form has seen the campus through John Huffer’s eyes.
His photos stretch across field sidelines and embellish Ball State’s arenas and stadiums. The images he spent his life taking loom on highway billboards and scroll across the university website. They sit framed on university walls and are printed in glossy pamphlets.
Huffer, Ball State photo services coordinator, died Thursday at IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital — the same hospital he was born in 54 years ago. Huffer was in the hospital after having a heart attack earlier in the week.
He is survived by his wife and his two daughters, Ball State student Jordan Huffer, 25, and Emily Huffer, 22.
John Huffer, a Ball State alumnus in photojournalism, worked for 30 years at Ball State and received many awards and recognition for his work.
“His photos will be a big part of the university’s history,” Rich Maloney, Ball State baseball head coach, said. “But he was a fan, too. He will leave a legacy, not many people have been able to share the university’s history like he has. John has encompassed a 30-year part of history, from the old football stadium to a new face. He has seen the campus change, new coaches come in.”
A winding line of people wove through the Alumni Center into a packed room where attendees lined the walls and filled the chairs for the memorial service Monday. Jo Ann Gora, university president; Tom Taylor, vice president of enrollment, marketing, and communications; Bill Scholl, director of intercollegiate athletics; and Jordan Huffer spoke at the service.
“… This is a great university because of people like John who do, every day, their best work,” Gora said. “He truly made a difference in the lives of the people he worked with.”
Friends reminisced, whether about his dangerous encounter with a tennis ball at a match where he “took one for the team” or being detained at the Canadian border because of his Hot Wheels cars collection.
Don Rogers, Ball State image specialist, was by his side when the two men were detained for a drug search at the Canadian border. They had gone to Canada to collect rare Hot Wheels and had several bags full of tiny cars crammed in the back of the car.
“The lady at the border said, ‘Do you expect me to believe two grown men drove from Indiana to get toy cars?’” Rogers said. “She slapped a big form on our wind shield, and we stopped next to the drug sniffing dog, armed officers and cars getting taken apart.”
Rogers said he still has to face the fact John Huffer is gone.
“You just expect him to be there,” Rogers said. “We knew he had health problems, but he always came back. We called him ‘The Energizer Bunny’ … We never thought he wouldn’t come back.”
During the memorial, the words “good friend,” “caring,” “dedicated” and “loving” constantly came up.
Maloney said he was a “gentle giant,” a tireless worker and a passionate fan.
“John is a wonderful human being,” Maloney said. “He is gracious and generous. He supported our program financially and through his work. Seeing John — it was a breath of fresh air.”
The two would greet each other on the diamond at the baseball games. John Huffer would say, “Coach, I like your team. Go get ‘em,” each time.
“That’s how I’ll always remember John,” Maloney said.
On Saturday, Jordan Huffer walked among the crowds at Scheumann Stadium as Ball State played against Toledo during Family Weekend. This was the first game she had been to without seeing her father snapping photos on the sidelines.
“Usually, the first thing I do when shooting a game is think, ‘I have to find Dad to tell him I’m here,’” she said. “I loved shooting with him, it was like we were colleagues.”
She said she always wanted to be like her father, which led her to photography.
John and Jordan Huffer were on the sidelines, camera in hand, for almost every type of sporting event on campus. When trying to get the same shot, the father and daughter would bump cameras and he would shoo her out of the way.
Jordan Huffer said she and her dad will always share a special bond. During one of the first shoots together, they were both covering a volleyball game and using rapid shutter on their cameras to catch the action.
“I noticed we were both clicking at the same time,” she said. “It’s weird, but I felt a very strong connection.”
As a sophomore photojournalism major and a photographer for The Ball State Daily News, Jordan Huffer has followed her dad’s path.
Before his surgery, she told her father he was her hero, that she loved him and how proud she was of him. As she followed him into the hospital hallway to the operating room, she kept saying, “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
He replied, “I’ll see you soon.”
Before the football game’s start Saturday, there was a small memorial service dedicated to John Huffer. His best photos flashed across the screens, one of which had a picture of Jordan Huffer. At the end, she listened to her dad’s voice as a video played of him working in his studio for a photo shoot, echoing his well-known line, “One more time.”
“It was hard to hear his voice again,” she said.
After the football game memorial, Jordan Huffer left early to get her bearings. She stopped to look at her dad’s athletic photos covering the outside of the stadium, and she said she knew as long as she is here, she is surrounded by his passion, his life’s work.
“I’m looking at something he created,” she said. “I know I will always see it. I will see it at this university.”
Editor’s note: Jordan Huffer is a chief photographer for The Ball State Daily News.
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