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Remembering Pat Williams – “Keep the faith, do the work, show up and care.”
He was the best political story teller I’ve ever shared a dinner and a drink with.
My first encounter with Montana Congressman Pat Williams was at a political event I was covering in Pocatello, Idaho in the early 1980s.
Williams, who died this week in Missoula, Montana at age 87, was speaking at that event. He delivered the best political stump speech I had ever heard.
I haven’t heard a better one since. It was an unabashed defense of enduring democratic values – respect for the Constitution, defense of a liberal education, support for working women and men and organized labor, an affirmation that good people in government can and must do good works.
It is said that Montana, a state I love for its beauty, its people and (until recently) its determinedly independent political nature, is really a small town with a very long Main Street. If you spend some time under the Big Sky you come to believe that virtually everyone in the fourth largest (by square mile) state in the Union knows everyone else. And it’s almost true.
Driving 200 miles to have dinner with friends or to watch a football game is pretty routine in Montana. Voters (until recently) knew their governor, U.S. senators and congressmen on a first name basis because those Montanans showed up to knock on doors, eat chicken dinners, hold town hall meetings and give local reporters interviews.
That has changed. A lot.
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In honor of his distinguished career, his body will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Helena on Wednesday July 2 from 8am to 6pm and Thursday July 3 from 8 to 11am after which he will be transported to Butte for a private family burial. Our family will host a celebration of life in Missoula on Tuesday July 15th at 4 pm at the Dennison Theater at UM followed by a reception at 5:30 also on campus. Memorials can be made to the Pat Williams Scholarship (https://www.umt.edu/arts-media/) supporting artists at the University of Montana or The Williams Family Fund (https://mtcf.org/giving/donate-now/give-now?fn=williams-family-fund).
A Montana Giant Has Passed – John Patrick “Pat” Williams October 30, 1937 – June 25, 2025
May his life inspire us to work for the public good, take care of each other and remember we have much more in common than that which divides us.