Remembering a gentleman

I haven’t had a clean shave going on about five years now, and Bill “Sarge” Brown was always quick to point that out.

A cordial, gentleman’s greeting always was followed with him smirking, rubbing his chin and asking, “What’s that stuff on your face?”

No employees wore beards the two decades Sarge was in charge of Vail Resorts.

The dozens of messages left on my answering machine from Sarge the past few years had a pretty consistent line, too:

“Josh ... this is Brown. What are you, on vacation again? That’s all you young people do nowadays is go on vacation.”

I think I was on vacation one time when Sarge called for me, and I never lived it down.

According to him, he worked seven days a week, 365 days a year the 20 years he was mountain manager at Vail Resorts — probably an exaggeration, but I didn’t question him on it. Sarge, even in his 80s, had a certain presence that I didn’t want to mess with.

But the old Teddy Bear would always lose his grumble at the end of the conversation when he would say: “Give my best to your lovely wife.”

I first met Sarge about five years ago, when Powderhorn Resort honored the board member on his 80th birthday. I didn’t know much of anything about the man I was going to interview that day at his home on the Redlands.

I was in for a surprise.

First he showed me photo after photo of himself posing on the ski mountain with United States presidents — Ford, Carter, Reagan, Nixon, along with famous athletes and astronauts. That’s one of the perks, I guess, of being in charge of arguably the best ski mountain in the world.

Sarge was a legend in the ski industry — and what’s amazing is he worked in it for less than half of his adult life.

He spent the first half in the Army. As much as I loved his Vail Mountain stories, my favorite stories were those he told about the 10th Mountain Division.

I ran an analogy past Sarge once to wrap my arms around the 10th Mountain Division, and Sarge approved. So here it is:

Imagine a crew of ski bums, outdoor freaks and adrenaline junkies from all over the western United States and country gathered in one place in the heart of the Colorado Rockies. Today, we call it the X Games.

In 1942, it was called the 10th Mountain Division at Camp Hale near Leadville — and these guys weren’t scoring sick air, TV time or endorsements — they were training for combat against the Nazis in the European Alps.

“We did a lot of rock climbing. We did a lot of rappelling,” Brown told the Free Press last year. “When someone was wounded in the mountains, we didn’t have helicopters. We carried them out on litters.”

Sarge had a Purple Heart and 15 medals from his service days, and he carried his toughness and pride from those days with him his entire life.

That might be why we hit it off. Sarge was like so many of those guys I knew at the local Legion club I tagged along with my dad to as a kid, and he also was a legend in the activity that I love, skiing.

He was at a stage in his life where he wanted to share his stories — I was the young guy who wanted to hear every one of them.

I pulled out the story I wrote about him in 2003, and this was my favorite Sarge quote:

“I was skiing every time I wasn’t fighting wars.”

By the time I met Sarge, his skiing days were behind him. He had some serious health problems this past year.

When I talked to him a month ago in his hospital room, the conversation ended with him assuring me that as soon as he was back on his feet, he and his wife, Rouene, would go out to lunch with my “lovely wife” and I.

Never got to have that lunch.

Sarge died Sunday. Newspapers throughout Colorado and the world have carried news of his death.

I’d known the news was coming, but it was still hard to take. I wanted to hear a few more of my friend’s stories before he died.

I called Steve Bailey at Powderhorn Resort Thursday and talked to him about Sarge.

Bailey described Sarge so well, that I’m going to allow him to speak for the both of us in conclusion.

“He could be gruff, harsh, but he had the kindest, most tender heart for that gruff appearance,” Bailey said. “He’s one of those characters that comes into your life once in a lifetime. It’s taken a real chunk out of our hearts ... it was a delightful experience to know the man.”

Josh Nichols is managing editor of the Grand Junction Free Press. Reach him at editor@gjfreepress.com.