David Crisp
Gazette Sports Editor Jeff Welsch wrote a solid farewell column last month for Bill Bighaus, who retired after 23 years as a sports writer at the Gazette. But the column failed to truly capture the range and depth of Bighaus’ remarkable wit.
I don’t mean that as a criticism. No single column could have pulled that off, and this one won’t either. Just consider this a modest contribution to the Bighaus legend.
Bill Bighaus had a natural knack for defusing the most deadline-strained office disasters with a quick deflating of an ego or a wry observation about the human comedy.
At times his style bordered on the lyrical. His funeral tribute to former Gazette Sports Editor Warren Rogers was a perfect combination of wit and nostalgia. Nobody could pull off that sort of thing better than Bighaus.
Evidence?
Let’s start with the line of his that I have most often quoted. Back when Yellowstone County decided to quit running horse races during MontanaFair, the Yellowstone Horse Racing Alliance picked up the slack, at least for a few years. Lots of us were skeptical that the alliance could pull it off, but nobody nailed it like Bighaus.
“They’re not only beating a dead horse,” he said, “they’re trying to make it get up and run around the track.”
Once when I was still at the Gazette, I had occasion to call Bighaus at home. I pretended to be a pollster calling Billings residents to ask their opinions about the Gazette.
Bill immediately knew it was me, but he played along, indicating that he had a great deal to say about that topic.
“Really?” I said. “I was just dialing numbers at random.”
“Well,” he said, “you hit the Powerball.”
When it came to drinking beer, Bill said, “That Ed Kemmick, he’s no slouch either.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but Ed just doesn’t have the bulk it takes to be a true champion.”
Bill agreed. “Ed gets a few beers in him,” he said, “and he thinks he’s a musician.”
That line came from somebody who famously never owned a scrap of music himself. But Bill had a soft, self-deprecating touch that allowed him to say things that might cause offense in clumsier hands. Talk about rapier wit: He could leave you naked and bleeding before you even knew you had been attacked.
One reason was that so much of his humor was directed at himself, not always on purpose. Once, while trying on deadline to find a fresh way to write that a sports team had nearly choked in the clutch, he hit upon this unfortunate phrase: The team, he wrote, had “fondled the panic button.”
Journalists are used to making their mistakes in front of an audience, and their toughest audience is made up of co-workers. Once in Texas, an editor I knew typed “incredible” as “incredibel.” For years afterward, nobody in the newsroom ever said anything was incredible without somebody immediately correcting the pronunciation to “incredi-bell.”
At the Gazette, some of us used to play basketball on Monday mornings, and Bill always led the game in trash talk. But for months after his fateful story appeared, every time he hesitated or missed a shot, somebody would point out that he was “fondling the panic button.”
It always got a laugh. But I don’t think anybody appreciated the joke more than Bill Bighaus.
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After three years as a print publication, the Helena Vigilante announced in September that it was becoming a nonprofit, Web-only site.
Editor and Publisher Shane Castle told readers in August that the Vigilante would give up its print edition if certain funding targets weren’t met. Commitments came in for more than $20,000 in additional funding, he said, but “that simply isn’t enough money to make the print product sustainable in the long-term.”
The plan is to restructure as a nonprofit, use a Kickstarter campaign to build an investigative fund, and then relaunch. In the meantime, the Vigilante just got a Facebook scoop with video of a secret caucus of Republican legislators, meeting in apparent defiance of Montana law.
When the Outpost opened its doors in 1997, weekly newspapers had just launched in Great Falls and Butte. A couple of years later, the Queen City News started publishing. The Missoula Independent, the granddaddy of Montana’s urban weeklies, had just been purchased by its current owner, Matt Gibson.
The Great Falls paper and the News have ceased operations. The Butte Weekly is now owned by a former employee, Robin Jordan. The Vigilante, just three years old, is no longer in print. Gibson is no longer the Independent’s publisher, but still owns it and is trying to think of new ways to build revenues in a weak advertising market.
And then there’s the Outpost, now in its 18th year, all with the same editor and publisher, and making a little bit of money. It’s a tough world out there.
David Crisp has worked for newspapers since 1979. He has been editor and publisher of the Billings Outpost since 1997.
Editor’s note: Coincidentally, the Gazette published a fan letter this morning, from one of Bill Bighaus’ Irish admirers.
