Ray L. Roberson, a photographer whose personable nature made him a good newspaper man and well-liked Columbus character, died shortly after midnight Sunday at Community Hospice in Verona, Ala.
He was 71.
Roberson had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for several years, said Regina Cash, his wife of 14 years.
Cash said she felt sure that if Roberson would not have been stricken by the disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, he would still be doing what he loved: taking pictures.
Roberson began as a photographer at The Dispatch not long after graduating from S.D. Lee High School, where he ran track. In order to compete in as many events as possible, he entered some under the name “Joe” Roberson and others as “Ray” Roberson. Because of that, his coach, Billy Brewer, took to calling him “Joe Ray.” The name stuck.
After several years working at the paper, Roberson moved to Jasper, Ala., to be a photographer with The Daily Mountain Eagle. He would became sports editor at that newspaper.
Then he opened Roberson Studio, which specialized in high school annual and wedding photography. He had a passion for helping children, especially those with special needs, Cash said. His rapport with children was strong. An Alabama high school once dedicated its annual to Roberson.
In the late 1980s, he moved back to Columbus and again became a photographer at The Dispatch.
For the next two decades he established himself as someone “right in the middle of everything that was going on,” said David Allen Williams, a longtime friend and freelance photographer with The Dispatch.
“He was just the type of guy you liked,” Williams said. “When he walked in a room everybody wanted to go over and talk to him.”
In the newsroom Roberson became a fixture. He always had a scanner nearby, listening for the next breaking news item he could run down. He was a dedicated newshound and someone the community came to know.
“Joe Ray was a character, a holdover from a time when newsrooms were full of characters,” Dispatch publisher Birney Imes said. “Joe Ray was always full of enthusiasm, for people, for his next assignment…He was very much a part of this place.”
He remained with The Dispatch through the late 2000s, when be began showing signs of Parkinson’s disease and made the decision to retire.
“He hung it up when he couldn’t hold the camera straight anymore,” Williams said.
Cash, who was married to Roberson from 1972 to 1986, said he kept taking pictures with the aid of a tripod for as long as he could.
On Monday morning, a little more than 24 hours after Roberson died, this is what his daughter, Ashley, said about her father: “He was a loved person and he loved people.”
A memorial service for Roberson will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the chapel at Memorial Funeral Home.
William Browning was managing editor for The Dispatch until June 2016.
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