April 5, 2006
Tough Week
for Good Guys

It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the good guys.  Larry Cobb, Matt Mattas, Bob McCormick and Ken Waterman, four people I called friend, made the Sentinel obituaries. 

Larry I’d known since the late sixties when he took over KWSL and morphed it into KQIL, our town’s first country station.  After radio, he established Cobb & Associates as Western Colorado’s leading ad agency. Where one really got to know Larry was on the golf course.  At his funeral it was mentioned nobody ever thought of Larry as a man of few words.  And he always seemed to save his most salient thoughts ‘til just before teeing off.  Larry was well aware no one in the foursome could go anywhere until he hit the ball and the ball was going to sit right on the tee until we heard his joke, the latest innovation in the world of Apple Computers, or just exactly how completely wrong the folks in Washington were.  But the really cool thing about Larry Cobb, the over riding memory for his many friends, is that whenever someone mentions his name, your first reaction is to smile.  He was just that good a guy. 

Matt Mattas, he of Datsun, Nissan, Mattas Motors and “Y’all come see me now y’hear!” was the first client of our struggling ad agency back in the 70’s and the first advertiser heard when KEKB signed on in ‘84.  Matt was a “car guy” and through him I met other car guys, all memorable in their own right, like Irv Nathenson, Jack Williams, clan Eisenhower, Les Shellabarger, family Fuoco, Bob Hanson and the Western Slope Ford folks from Reed Miller to Mike Ferris.  Each a good businessman but even in that most successful crew, Matt, chewing on his ever-present unlit cigar, was unique.  We would be plotting a new wacky way to get customers through the dealership door and into a Nissan when he’d interrupt, “Hey! Do you know what you’re doin?”  I’d mumble in the affirmative and he’d reply, “Well I’m just checkin”.   But we both knew any campaign was based far more on hope than knowledge.  What I did learn from Matt Mattas was the right way to operate a small town business. 

Bob McCormick was another genuine bright spot in the local galaxy.  Folks like Bob are the reason life’s better when the taproot sinks deep and one lives their life in a single town.  I’d see Bob and his buds having coffee at the Redlands Albertson’s and inquire about the airport board or the fire district fiasco and he’d point a finger at me and say, “We can talk about that anytime, more importantly, do you think Shanahan‘s aware of what he’s getting in Jake Plummer?”  A Hawkeye at heart, he loved spotting someone familiar with Iowa sports. But no matter the subject, no matter his health, Bob McCormick was always smiling. 

Like Ken Waterman, a man who consistently called our radio station before 6 in the morning with a joke.  “You’re the only guys I know”, he’d tell Heller and me, “getting up as early as I do.”  Whether buying ads for his tree farm or pitching us on both free spots and buying an animal at the Junior Livestock Auction, the guy from Tucumcari would light up any room with the force of his personality.