How appropriate that Valentine’s Day is the date we publish the obituary of dear friend Dick Crockford. His heart was as big as the Montana sky and his generosity as wide as the state he served so well.
Monitor readers may remember Crockford from time he spent in 2002 helping new owners Jan and David Anderson transition into the new position. Driving daily from Anaconda for about three weeks, he volunteered just because he was always a booster of Montana newspapers. He firmly believed in the value of public conversations carried out in small town weeklies.
It was a tough winter when he made that trip to Boulder, and on one morning trip he hit some ice on the Elk Park flats. He spun out and hit a delineator that bounced up and shattered the rear window of his car. That didn’t stop him. He continued on to Boulder, put in a day’s volunteering, and then drove back to Anaconda, plastic moving wrap covering the hole where his rear window used to be.
In his usual fashion, he was able to laugh about the experience.
Monitor readers might also remember Crockford for his visits to Boulder for the annual music and art festival. He was that guy with the heavy gray mustache that gave him an appearance reminiscent of a walrus, something he also joked about.
And beneath that mustache, he seemed always to be smiling.
He was a tremendous supporter of the Montana Newspaper Association in so many ways. His expertise came through when he served on the board of directors, something he did for many years. His loving nature came through when he patted old friends on the back and shared stories about mutual trials and tribulations of running a newspaper. His generosity came through when he offered to help any fellow editor or publisher in any way he could. And his big-hearted caring shined when he stood each year at the MNA business meeting, reading aloud tributes to the newspaper men and women who had departed in the past year, often choking back emotion over the friends no longer with us.
The world of Montana newspapering lost a great champion last week, and whether they know it or not, all Montanans lost a valued citizen who never missed a chance to be kind and generous.
Rest well, dear friend.
