Larry Bowler
1916 - 2000

Inducted June 9, 2005

Larry C. Bowler, longtime editor and publisher of the Daniels County Leader in Scobey, was born April 17, 1916, in Flaxville, Mont.,  and began his formal journalism career in the shops of his father’s newspapers there and in Antelope and Plentywood.

While still in grade school, however, he and his brother, Duane, who later became managing editor of the Billings Gazette, put out “special issues” on holidays to earn extra money. His active career continued until the week before his death on Jan. 21, 2000.

In the interim, he dedicated his life to his community, serving as president — and chief promoter —  of nearly every organization in Daniels County. His efforts resulted in projects that ranged from the paving of highways to underwriting state American Legion baseball tournaments in Scobey.

He was the founder of KCGM, Scobey’s FM radio station, and he pumped more than $100,000 of his own money into the community-owned operation, even though it was a competitor of his newspaper. In the last 25 years, the station, following Bowler’s ground rules, has raised more than $750,000 for projects to meet community needs.

Bowler was graduated from high school in 1933 and enrolled at the University of Montana with 119 other freshmen. The pre-law and business major joined SAE Fraternity, won a freshman numeral in football, and reigned for two years as the M Club’s undefeated light-heavyweight boxing champion.

He used the life-long friendships gained through those activities, and his skills as a negotiator and  journalist, for the benefit of others around him, his community and Montana, rather than for personal gain.

Health problems that led to financial woes caused Bowler to drop out of the university in 1936. He returned to Scobey to help his father, Burley Bowler (Hall of Fame 1976), until heading for North Dakota to become manager and editor of the Hettinger County Herald in New England, N.D., in 1940.

He bought that newspaper in 1941 and then sold it a year later to start the Wolf Point Lariat in 1942.

Told in 1943 that Wolf Point “needed only one paper,” the young editor sold his fledgling publication to the better-established Wolf Point Herald and joined the Marine Corps, seeing duty in the Pacific.

Bowler returned to Scobey after World War II and made it his home for the rest of his life. He worked his way up to publisher of The Leader and remained at the helm until he retired and became publisher emeritus in 1996, the title he held until his death.

As president of the Scobey Alumni Association in 1937-38, Bowler spearheaded a bond issue for the Scobey school’s gymnasium. After the war, he was instrumental in organizing the Daniels County Soil District, serving as its first secretary in 1948. While president of the Scobey Lions Club in 1963, Bowler helped structure what became a successful Homesteaders Golden Jubilee, leading to the establishment of the Daniels County Museum and Pioneer Town.

Other projects spearheaded by the Leader publisher included bringing the Nemont Telephone headquarters to Scobey and backing fundraisers to build the local hospital.
Personally, and in his newspaper, Bowler recognized people as people, not by their sex or color. He identified women rather than leaving them out of pictures and recognized their hardships as pioneers at a time when the mainstream media did not deem that important. He battled for the rights of Japanese families “and recognized people in Wolf Point as people, not as whites or Indians.”

Larry C. Bowler was an excellent representative of that dying breed of stubborn newspapermen who never let the “good customer thing” influence his news reporting or his editorial writing. He always employed the “power of the press” in positive ways to promote good causes, not personal gain.

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