WE LOST a good one last week, and there don’t seem that many good ones left. That’s a common illusion among those who are getting on in years themselves. But there are still lots of good folks out there, maybe even more than there used to be. They just may not make the headlines the other kind does. Which is assuring in its way. Think of a world in which goodness was so rare it merited an EXTRA edition and headlines in 60-point type. It’s not a world you may want to think about too long. On the bad days, it comes too close to reality. So it’s probably a good thing that the devil enjoys a lot more news coverage than the angels among us; at least we’re given fair warning that way.

Good folks may not make the papers except on rare occasions-as when they’re mentioned in the birth and wedding announcements. And on the obituary page,which is where we saw Sam Boyce’s name on Sunday, and learned that he had died at 81. His was the lede obituary in Arkansas’ Newspaper that day, and deserved to be. The world-and the state-needs to be reminded of the good who are passing through along with the rest of us.

It did not surprise to learn from his obituary that, from an early age in little Tuckerman, Ark., Sam was an amateur magician. Among the other distinctions mentioned in his obit Sunday, he was a member in good standing of the International Brotherhood of Magicians, Order of Merlin, but it would have taken every trick in the book and then some for him to win election in those faugressive times.

SAM BOYCE never outgrew his love of magic, but he did outgrow the political bug and go on to practice law, long and hard, in Newport. He went from diligent prosecutor to stalwart advocate over the years as his politician’s handshake became a helping hand. And he went from young rebel to elder statesman faithfully toeing the party line. By 2000, as a delegate to the Democrats’ national convention in Los Angeles that year, he was still defending another Arkansas boy who’d gone from bright hope to old pol, Bill Clinton, despite l’affaire Lewinsky and all the other escapades that marked the Clinton administration and succession of scandals. Let’s just say old Sam was loyal to a fault.

A devout Democrat of the yellow dog persuasion, Counselor Boyce remained a stout liberal but, as the late great Scoop Jackson of the state of Washington and the politics of sanity would put it when asked if he was a liberal: “Yes, but I try not to be a damfool.” Neither was Sam Boyce, whose law practice could be summed up as a lifelong demonstration of his ability to identify with the underdogs of the world-which is one more reason he will be missed. You bet there are still good people out there. Sam Boyce’s life testifies to it.

Not that Sam Boyce didn’t make headlines in his time, the best ones early on when he was a Young Turk giving the Faubus machine lots of much deserved grief as president of the state’s Young (and admirably feisty) Democrats back in the seggish Sixties. Those were the days, the bad old days, when to speak out for truth, justice and the American way-especially when it came to matters racial-was the surest way to merit the enmity of the state’s bigots and the wrath of the nigh-eternal incumbent in the Governor’s Mansion.

Young Mr. Boyce would go on to run for office after office-notably governor against Jim Johnson, the state’s ür-seg in those bleak days-and get beat election after election. Each defeat was an honor, considering some of the types he would be defeated by.

SOME of us thought the Faubus Era would never end, and may even secretly wished it wouldn’t. The issues were so clear-cut then, like Good vs. Evil, and there was never any problem discerning between them. It made life, not to mention editorial writing, so much simpler. You didn’t have to peer through all those shades of gray to decide which candidate was better, or what proposal to support or oppose. Whether it was the sacrificial anti-Faubus candidate on the ballot that year (remember Joe Hardin of Grady?) or a regional craze like the Southern Manifesto with all its distinguished signatories. And a fairly comprehensive list it was-from Georgia’s esteemed Richard B. Russell to Arkansas’ sainted J. William Fulbright, whose signatures on that infamous testament remain indelible. Like a declaration of moral bankruptcy.

In his party’s darkest days, Sam Boyce was invariably numbered on the side of the brave and good, few as they may have seemed before the clouds passed and Arkansas emerged into the sunlight with Winthrop Rockefeller and the collection of fighting knights he gathered around him. If they were few, they were the happy few, a band of brothers-and sisters!-during that decade-long St. Crispin’s Day, and those who stayed a-bed, to recall a line or two from Henry V, “shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here/and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks/that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” As indeed Sam Boyce did, long and hard.

Many a toast will yet be made to the memory of Sam Harvey Boyce Sr., as they doubtless were last weekend, and as they will be whenever he comes to mind. And to heart. Here’s to his combination of strength and conviction. There was something magic about it.

Editorial, Pages 16 on 12/18/2013