Many people loved and were loved by Tom Gish, who died November 21 after publishing The Mountain Eagle for nearly 52 years. Some were family members by dint of heredity. Others came to Letcher County to work at The Eagle, not knowing that they too would become family. When they went on to other pursuits, they went secure in the knowledge that wherever they were, their family — Tom and Pat and the kids and the Eagle — would always be close to their hearts, always in their thoughts. 

 
 Tom and Pat Gish relaxed on the couch in
their home on School Hill in Whitesburg in the early 1970's

An American patriot

The indelible picture in my mind of Tom Gish is the day in 1974 when I showed up in Whitesburg to offer whatever assistance I could after the firebombing of The Mountain Eagle. Tom was sitting on his front porch, banging away on a typewriter to get out a very rudimentary version of his paper. Across the masthead he had typed, "It Still Screams!"

One measure of Tom is how far the news of his death spread. I found obituaries in papers from Louisville, Lexington, Williamson, Nashville, Buffalo, Boston, New York, Washington — all around America, all around Asia, all around the world. In some he was called a "renowned" editor. In others he was called a "crusader." The Associated Press, with whom Tom was a fierce competitor when he was the Frankfort bureau chief of the rival United Press, cited his courage in "shining a spotlight on corruption and environmental degradation." One obituary noted that local critics had accused Tom and Pat of being communists. Others described him as an environmentalist. But it takes a much longer yardstick to really measure this man.

Tom Gish, above all else, was truly an American patriot. Born of Republican parents in a coal mining family in Letcher County, he was an accidental crusader, if indeed that word is even apt. Tom simply took the Founding Fathers at their word: A free people, properly informed, will seek justice, and their elected representatives will ensure that all men and women are treated equally and receive their fair share of the bounties that are bestowed upon us all. That was the hope of Thomas Jefferson, a mountain man himself, when he enshrined in the Bill of Rights freedom of the press, speech, religion, right of petition, and all the other liberties we enjoy.

The true measure of Tom Gish is the extent to which he found those promises unfulfilled and the enduring battle he fought — and the sacrifices he and his entire family made — to try to make those promises a reality. In a time when the ethos of the age is every man for himself and government is the enemy, Tom still believed that government could be made to serve the people, to ensure that all have food on the table, an opportunity for a job, the right to have their property protected, and the right to be happy, joyous and free. That is the measure of Tom Gish and, sadly, it is a marker of how far we have strayed in journalism, politics and business that he seemed to be in a distinct minority.

Tom and Pat have had an incredible influence on our government in righting many of the wrongs they saw. The Mountain Eagle's reach to legislators and the national and international press corps shaped legislation ranging from food stamps, Head Start, Title I of the education act, Black Lung compensation, mine safety legislation, stripmining legislation, housing assistance, to name only a few — all done from a weekly newspaper.

In February 2007 I had a chance to talk with Tom about a variety of topics at his home in Thornton. I found him at 81 to be a man still burning with a sense of justice. He had thought through what this nation would reap from its profligacy of indebtedness, its embrace of empire-building abroad and its disdain of regulation. We are now reaping the economic calamity he saw coming from the policies of the past few decades. Surprisingly, perhaps, to some, Tom had already concluded that both political parties were committed to the same tired agenda and the only hope was that the people of the country would wake up in time to see the crisis before them and decide to change course. It is sad that Tom won't have the chance to influence the Obama administration, but hopefully others with the best interests of the people in the mountains will have that opportunity and Washington will listen.

Tom's other hope was that the internet would put into the hands of the public the tools to be really informed on where the power in the region and the nation lies and where the money trail inevitably leads. To that end, Tom, Pat and the Mountain Eagle family have inspired journalists all over the mountains and the nation to follow their example.

Finally, I found Tom to be remarkably at peace with himself for the battles he had waged over the decades. His sense of humor was intact, his intellect as incisive as ever, his hope for the region and the nation still alive. He was mellow. His smile and laughter were larger than ever. This man was not a crusader. Rather, he was truly an American patriot, a man consumed with a passion for democratic action and a deep belief in the ultimate triumph of the common man and woman in achieving the American dream. He seemed happy, joyous and free. His was truly a life well lived and an example to others well engraved. We will miss him more than we know.

— Jim Branscome