Column: Garry

A few days before Christmas I received some saddening news about the death of a longtime friend in Wyoming.

In my time knowing Garry Gouger he was a co-worker who I would later work directly for. He was a mentor and someone who always made me laugh even if I was having the worst of days. He had no filter, a huge heart, and showed me that work should be fun not a horrible place you dread going to.

I first met Garry when I was a hired as a full-time reporter at the daily newspaper in my hometown. He was the head of the advertising department but made sure he was one of the first to introduce himself and would take time each day to chat for a few minutes. We quickly found we had a shared love of the Denver Broncos and watching a ton of movies, so we clicked instantly. Garry would also see that I had never had a job that required a dress code involving a tie, so each day I came up with a new tie, he would help me tie it. I'm descent at a few things, but tying a tie is certainly not one of them.

I would later leave that job, but a few years later would come back to the newspaper to work directly for him in the advertising department. I didn't mind building pages but had zero interest in designing ads, so I was not thrilled about starting the new job, but it was still at a newspaper so at least I had that.

While I had gotten to know Garry through my time in the news department, working with him eight hours a day was a totally different story. He would set the tone each morning with a variety of stories. If it was a Monday, the first few hours of the morning would be a play-by-play recap of his weekend. There were often times I was busy and didn't have time to hear his 30-minute review of a movie, but I would still listen as I worked. I actually started to look forward to Mondays because there was always something crazy that happened over the weekend. He once had huge feud with people who were riding dirt bikes near his house and it was always interesting to see how things escalated over the weekend.

There were also times where Garry would tell a story about Vietnam or his escapades as a single man that were totally inappropriate, but nobody seemed to mind, we just smiled and tuned him out if it was a little too over the top.

Garry was very good at what he did and also cared about his employees. He and his wife Anita would take me to lunch at least one day and week and no matter how hard I tried to pitch in, they would always pay. After a couple years I was no longer an employee, I was family and I never minded going to work. Work is always a lot more fun with friends and family. We were a tight knit group who always got the job done, even if we were off task a lot.

In my time working for him I only saw him mad a few times. The worst was when we were putting together a special section that was our biggest money maker of the year. One of the page builders didn't really seem to have an interest in an ad, and Garry said, "I can't see how you can be so damn cavalier about a full-page ad". It was the most serious I had ever seen him and all I could do was laugh because he had actually used the word cavalier.

I would once again leave my job at my hometown newspaper and as I moved to work at different papers, I would always remember what he taught me. It was okay to have fun at work, it was okay to be honest, it was okay to treat co-workers like family, and this could all be done while being very productive. I would often times cringe when my bosses were awful to work for and were serious about everything. I hated that and wished he was still my boss.

I would lose touch with Garry for a few years, but reconnected thanks to finding his wife on Facebook.

When we would chat, it would be very little about work, although he was very proud of what I have accomplished. It was instead about the Broncos, movies, and often time an inappropriate story that would make me smile. Each time we spoke I would make sure I used the word cavalier at least once so there were at least two people on earth who still use that word.

It was a sad day to learn about Garry, but there were also plenty of smiles.

I never told him that I still have some of the ties he tied, still with the same knot from my early days as a reporter and him giving me a helping hand.

Thanks for everything Garry, you will be missed by everyone who ever got the chance to meet you.