Webster's Dictionary defines "rapport" as a "sympathetic connection, harmony," and to a reporter, it's a key ingredient in one's success.

Although I don't claim success as in "award-winning journalist," I claim success as a journalist with nearly three decades of experience.

In that time, I've met a lot of people, mostly good people. And although I can't remember all their names, it's amazing to me how this really is the proverbial (I borrowed that from my editor) "small world, isn't it?" concept.

To illustrate that, I think it was more than 20 years ago, when I worked in a similar capacity at the Valencia County News-Bulletin (I covered sports and city government there, sports and education here) and had the opportunity to pen a feature story on a youngster who was all excited about the opportunity she would soon have to attend Space Camp.

It was at about the time the movie "Space Camp" (1986, with Kate Capshaw and Joaquin Phoenix) was in the theaters, so it was "timely," in a sense.

Although I have forgotten a lot of stories and interviews I've conducted, I never forgot that young student and how enthused she was. She hoped to someday be an astronaut.

Of course, being an astronaut is a lofty goal, and something not a lot of New Mexicans, except for guys like Harrison Schmitt, Sid Gutierrez and Mike Mullane, can attain.

Neither did this youngster, but that doesn't mean she wasn't successful.

Flash ahead almost 20 years, with me working at The Observer and finding out the kid, grown by now, was working for the City of Rio Rancho to Keep Rio Rancho Beautiful.

Her "out of this world" dream hadn't come true, but Dyane Sonier is working to make this planet a better one.

And just last week the two of us got together for lunch.

Sonier was among a dozen nominees for the Girl Scouts of Chaparral Council, Inc., Hall of Fame. The May 5 Hall of Fame dinner will take place at the Embassy Suites Hotel. It recognizes local women for their achievements within their profession and community.

She's done a lot in her life, just not in space. It was nice to catch up with her and to recall how I knew at our first meeting about two decades ago that she had a lot on the ball.

Another case of rapport came to mind when I heard Rex Henington had died after a short bout with colon cancer.

Like Sonier, I had met Henington back in Belen while working at the News-Bulletin.

In fact, he was the first of countless football coaches I've had rapport with. He was the Belen Eagles coach the first time I began covering the prep scene, 'way back in 1979.

He was there about three seasons and then departed, teaching and coaching at several New Mexico high schools before landing, of all places, in Los Lunas.

We had spoken last fall, when I was in "Tiger Town" to cover a Rams girls soccer game with the Los Lunas team. Henington was the athletic director there, and I had remarked again how strange it was to see the Belen alum wearing the blue and orange of Los Lunas.

At the time, I was also hosting a high school sports show on a radio station. I wanted him to be a guest, but he told me every Saturday morning when my show aired he was busy visiting his 90-something-year-old father.

It's ironic that Rex Henington died before his elderly father.

I'm glad I never burned any bridges along the way.

We had been acquaintances, so to speak, back in 1979, and again in 2006. It was the same for Sonier and me; acquaintances in the 1980s and again in 2007.

That's the way this business goes.

You never know who you'll run into years and years after your first interview, or meeting, with him or her.

Let me quote Humphrey Bogart again, something I did in a "Gary's Glimpses" column more than 20 years ago, when talking about the newspaper biz: "It ain't the oldest profession, but it's the best."

GARY HERRON covers sports and education for The Observer.