Gary Svee (1943 – July 14, 2019)) was an American author and journalist, known for his Westerns. He was born in
Billings, Montana
Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metrop ...
, growing up on the banks of the Yellowstone, Rosebud and Stillwater rivers, and was a graduate of the
University of Montana
The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fal ...
's School of Journalism.
[ (]PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
)
Svee was a former editorial director for the ''Billings (Montana) Gazette''. He was on the newspaper's staff in 1993, when the town suffered a wave of vicious racial and religious hatred. Citizens who attended a
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day (officially Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., and sometimes referred to as MLK Day) is a federal holiday in the United States marking the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. It is observed on the third Mond ...
commemoration returned to their cars to find racist literature on them.
Swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. It ...
s were painted on a
Native American family's home,
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
flyers were openly distributed, the Billings
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
cemetery was desecrated and a brick was hurled through the window of a Jewish family whose six-year-old son put the family's
Menorah in it for
Hanukkah
or English translation: 'Establishing' or 'Dedication' (of the Temple in Jerusalem)
, nickname =
, observedby = Jews
, begins = 25 Kislev
, ends = 2 Tevet or 3 Tevet
, celebrations = Lighting candles each night. ...
.
The people of Billings banded together, with volunteers re-painting the home and ridding it of the hate-filled graffiti; religious groups held marches and those who were not members of a particular religion began attending other services in addition to their own, to show unity and support for each other. The ''Billings Gazette'' printed a full page depiction of a Menorah, asking residents to put the page up in their businesses and homes.
[ Svee related how the image was chosen for the paper, saying, "I guess it was a question of looking for an image to put this together. During the second World War, the Danish King is reputed to have come out after the Jewish community was forced to wear stars by the Nazi occupiers, that he was reported to have come out with a yellow star too."][
While hundreds of residents displayed the newspaper's Menorah, the incidents were still occurring. The Billings Chief of Police, Gary Inman, issued a challenge to the town's citizens: for every instance of vandalism, ten more people should display the picture of the Menorah; by the end of December, 1993, there were over 10,000 Menorah images openly displayed in the town. The wave of hatred ended.][ Svee was one of those who worked with the Institute of Peace at ]Rocky Mountain College
Rocky Mountain College (Rocky or RMC) is a private college in Billings, Montana. It offers 50 liberal arts and professional majors in 24 undergraduate disciplines. In fall 2013, the college had 1069 enrolled students. It is affiliated with the ...
to start the Festival of Cultures in Billings, which offers residents an opportunity to both celebrate their heritage and learn about the heritage of others.[
Svee, a fiction adviser to the '']Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
'', credited his writing ability to being raised in a family of storytellers, and to his mentor and teacher at the University of Montana, Dorothy M. Johnson
Dorothy Marie Johnson (December 19, 1905 – November 11, 1984) was an American writer best known for her Western fiction.
Biography
Early life
Dorothy Marie Johnson was born in McGregor, Iowa, the only daughter of Lester Eugene Johnson and Ma ...
. Svee also teaches writing at Montana State University
Montana State University (MSU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's largest university. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 6 ...
.[
Svee's novel ''Sanctuary'' won the 1990 ]Spur Award
Spur Awards are literary prizes awarded annually by the Western Writers of America (WWA). The purpose of the Spur Awards is to honor writers for distinguished writing about the American West. The Spur awards began in 1953, the same year the WWA wa ...
given annually by the Western Writers of America
Western Writers of America (WWA), founded 1953, promotes literature, both fictional and nonfictional, pertaining to the American West. Although its founders wrote traditional Western fiction, the more than 600 current members also include historian ...
for the best Western novel award. Svee was also the co-author of ''Script-ease'', a guide to writing fiction.
Bibliography
* ''Spirit Wolf'' (1987)
* ''Incident at Pishkin Creek'' (1989)[
* ''Sanctuary'' (1990)][
* ''Single Tree'' (1994)
* ''The Peacemaker's Vengeance'' (2003)
* ''Showdown at Buffalo Jump'' (also published as ''Incident at Pishkin Creek'') (2003)]
* ''Outcast'' (2005)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Svee, Gary
1943 births
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
American male novelists
Living people
Writers from Montana
University of Montana alumni
Western (genre) writers
American male journalists
Rocky Mountain College
Journalists from Montana
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers