Anna Paige/Big Sky Journal
Corby Skinner, with some of his Montana books.
Corby Skinner, who has probably done as much to promote the arts and culture as anybody in the history of Billings, is the subject of a justly laudatory article in the new issue of Big Sky Journal.
Written by Stella Fong, with photographs by Anna Paige (both of them contributors to Last Best News), the article paints a well-rounded portrait of Skinner. Here’s the gist of it:
“He helped raise the curtains at the landmark Alberta Bair Theater in Billings, gave writers a venue with the Writer’s Voice, and honored authors through the High Plains BookFest and High Plains Book Awards. For his efforts in these various arenas of arts, he received the 2009 Governor’s Humanities Award. These days he is promoting the nascent music venue Tippet Rise in Fishtail, Montana.”
But we also learn that his father played baseball for the Billings Mustangs, that Skinner used to ride his bicycle to work at the Parmly Billings Library, when it still occupied what is now the Western Heritage Center, and that he and Billings developer Steve Corning both worked on the set of “The Missouri Breaks.”
Long may he prosper.
