Terry Maxon covered the airline industry for 25 years until he retired from The Dallas Morning News in 2015. This was adapted from his final blog post about covering Herb Kelleher.

Everybody who met Herb Kelleher was instantly his friend. He leaned in, offered an observation, a confidence, then let go with his big, drawn-out laugh, a-HAAA-HAAAA-ha! If you said something halfway funny, he rewarded you with another big laugh that ended only when he ran out of air.

For the time you spent with Herb, you were the only one who existed. You were his best friend, the person he'd rather be talking to than anyone else in the world. You were awash in the glow of his admiration.

And the thing is, it was real. Herbert D. Kelleher was genuine. I've covered airline executives who exuded good will and camaraderie, but it was just a façade for the moment, a role they had to play. Herb Kelleher roamed the world looking for people to greet, hug and shake their hands — and make another best friend.

For a reporter, of course, this was dangerous.

At our core, we are not the friends of the people and companies we cover. We are not their enemies. We are the recorders of what they do, with an effort to put it into an accurate, balanced context that informs our readers. We are not to be cynics, but we are skeptics.

From the time I started covering Southwest Airlines and by extension Herb Kelleher, I had to separate the Kelleher Reality Distortion Field from my reporting on the company's affairs. The trick was to realize that his bonhomie threatened your neutrality, and then make sure you didn't let it influence your reporting.

I started on the airline beat on Oct. 1, 1990. In late October, I went out to meet Herb Kelleher and his longtime assistant, Colleen Barrett (who later became Southwest's president). But we've already met you, Herb protested, as they marched me down to the lobby to show me a framed clipping from my days covering Dallas City Hall, some 10 years earlier.

I didn't remember. He did.

From time to time, I'd have sit-down interviews with Kelleher. And I can't remember any newsworthy secrets, any news he told me — ever.

Our conversations would be wildly entertaining, filled with anecdotes and jokes, all conducted in a thick cloud of cigarette smoke. But when I exited the interview, I'd review my notes or listen to my recording and realize that he hadn't told me anything that I could put in print.

Kelleher, a practicing attorney before he took over the helm at Southwest, knew how to say a lot without revealing a thing.

The myth of Southwest Airlines gives too little credit to Lamar Muse, the chief executive officer hired at the start of 1971 to put Southwest in the air. But without Herb's skill and tenacity, there would have been no Southwest to get into the air.

He fought countless legal battles in state and federal courts in the 1960s and 1970s to fend off established airlines that tried to kill Southwest in the womb. He led the legal battle in the 1970s to prevent Dallas from kicking Southwest out of Dallas Love Field, the incubator that established the base for its later expansion.

He didn't prevent Congress from passing the Wright amendment in 1979, but he did keep Jim Wright from barring all flights from Love Field.

After Muse lost his job in a boardroom showdown in 1978, Herb was picked as chairman to hold the team together while they looked for a new CEO. In 1981, after that CEO, Howard Putnam, left to go to Braniff, Kelleher soon decided to take the CEO and president job as well as chairman.

Herb the superstar

That was really the beginning of the era of Herb Kelleher, superstar. He starred in Southwest's commercials. He appeared on the cover of major magazines. He rode in parades. He dressed as Elvis. He arm-wrestled for an advertising slogan.

1 / 3Herb Kelleher wore a funny hat in 1996 as airline introduced a Rapid Rewards Visa card. (DONNA BAGBY / AP) 2 / 3Southwest Airlines' chairman Herb Kelleher mugs the camera with Sabrina Gonzales, a Southwest Airlines receptionist at their chili cook-off in San Antonio in 1991.(DAVID WOO) 3 / 3 Straddling a Harley-Davidson motorcycle given him by his pilots, Southwest Airlines chairman Herb Kelleher prepares to sing 'Blue Suede Shoes' at a 1994 company chili cook-off in Dallas.(AP)

Here's how I described him in a 1992 story:

Whether it's hugging and kissing co-workers at a meeting or making a 2 a.m. visit to a maintenance hangar, Mr. Kelleher is not happy unless he's talking with employees.

He's found himself in many different places over the years — regularly loading luggage onto airplanes every Thanksgiving Day and cooking Christmas dinner at Ronald McDonald Houses in the cities where Southwest flies. He'll show up anywhere a Southwest employee is stationed, even if it means climbing over a locked fence to make a surprise reservations center visit.

He's dressed up as Elvis Presley, a woman, the Easter bunny, a leprechaun and a flight attendant to promote Southwest. He performs in rap songs for training tapes — or any other occasion. He seems unable to walk through Southwest offices, airport ramps or along the terminal gates without schmoozing. He works the crowds at Southwest's frequent parties and hosts meetings in Southwest's 32 cities.

"I'm convinced he has a photographic memory," vice president of people Ann Rhoades says. "I'm convinced he can remember anybody's name. I said to him, 'You cannot know 9,400 [Southwest employee] names!' He said, 'That's right, Ann — I haven't met all of them.'"

Kelleher took Southwest from small-time player focused almost entirely on Texas to a major carrier that was a thorn in the side of every other major airlines' fuselage.

An executive at American Airlines told me back in the 1990s that Southwest ran on Herb Kelleher's BS, although the executive didn't abbreviate in saying so.

Cigarettes and whiskey

The myth of Herb Kelleher is that he was a chain-smoker and great fan of Wild Turkey whiskey. I can't speak to the Wild Turkey because I never went drinking with him. But I don't remember seeing him without a cigarette.

We should point out that he didn't actually smoke as many cigarettes as burn up in his possession. He'd get involved in telling a story, and the cigarette between his fingers sometimes burned down without another puff.

One of my predecessors on the airline beat remembers one day when Herb realized he had a cigarette going in his left hand and another in his right hand. A-HAAA-HAAAA-ha!

He did give up cigarettes briefly a few years ago. A growing shortness of breath meant that he wouldn't be able to attend Conquistadores del Cielo, an annual outdoorsy and high-altitude Wyoming gathering of top executives in the airline and aerospace industry. But after a short while, he realized that he enjoyed smoking too much to give it up. And so he kept smoking.

In March 2014, I was interviewing Herb in his office at Southwest's Dallas headquarters when I noticed him sneaking a look at his watch. He noticed me noticing his glance. "Oh, it's not you, Terry," Herb said. "I'm trying to cut back on smoking and I was looking to see if it was time for my next cigarette."

With the spotlight so brightly shining on Kelleher, it often left Colleen Barrett in the shadow. But for several decades, she shaped the culture, the people focus, inside the airline. The team of Kelleher and Barrett enlarged and protected a corporate culture of 1) scrappy underdog to the public, 2) fierce warrior to its competitors and 3) warm, supportive and protective atmosphere for the employees. Southwest wouldn't be what it is today without Herb. But neither would it be what it is without Barrett's strong and constant influence.

In addition to her impact on the Southwest culture, Kelleher relied on Barrett as his protector, and business partner. Herb tells a story in which Colleen stuck her head in his office and told him to put his coat on. He did so. After a while, he got up, stuck his head in her office and asked, "Did I put my coat on because I'm cold or because I'm going somewhere?"

Kelleher, who retired in 2008, was also a tough competitor. At a Dallas banquet in March 1991 to honor 42 original employees remaining from the 1971 startup, Kelleher outlined Southwest's formula for success.

"If someone says they're going to smack us in the face," Herb told attendees, "knock them out, stomp them out, boot them in the ditch, cover them over and move on to the next thing. That's the Southwest spirit at work."