It was 1976. Kirby Warnock was an editor for Stoney Burns’ music magazine Buddy. He was rubbing elbows with the Vaughan brothers. He was shooting pictures of Jerry Hall, who was dating Mick Jagger at the time. He was doing drugs.
And he had a rock-n-roll marriage with Jennifer.
Warnock met Brian Moore-Jones, and they decided to start a video production company. They took out an $8,000 bank loan in 1982.
Instead of buying the equipment, Moore-Jones spent the money on cocaine, fatally shot a man who tried to collect the owed money and headed to prison for 35 years. Moore-Jones’ wife Sarah divorced him. Then, Warnock’s wife filed for divorce — his three-year marriage ended. It was time for church.
A Baylor University alumnus, Warnock went to First Baptist Church Oak Cliff’s single adult Sunday school class, the first time he stepped in a church in 20 years. And there was Diann.
“There was just something about her — she’s attractive, there was a kindness about her that just made her almost glow,” Warnock says.
Their first date was at Cajun-inspired Andrew’s, located in the building that now houses Breadwinners. Warnock knew she was “the one” shortly after that.
“I thought: This is a different kind of woman than I’ve ever met before,” he says. “And I think I just want to be with her for the rest of my life, you know, and we didn’t date a real long time.”
They eloped March 12, 1987, in Crested Butte, Colorado.
He’d left Buddy magazine by then. He got a day-job writing business proposals. Diann and Kirby raised their three children.
“She’s made my whole life better. She just made me a better person,” Warnock says. “That’s my little story of my love letter to her.”
