He stepped to the microphone to announce the final pick of the first round at the 2025 National Hockey League Draft. Any hockey fan who knows his or her hockey history knew exactly who it was. If nothing else, the 'stache gave him away.
NHL legend Lanny McDonald took to the microphone with these words of wisdom: "I want to say congratulations to all 31 players picked in the first round. To the players who have not been picked and believed they were going to be in that first round, I say, come with the best attitude you possibly can tomorrow and prove them all wrong. I would also like to say, make sure you thank you billets (host families) and especially your family. You cannot get here without them."
What a class act. McDonald played 16 years in the NHL for three different teams and led the Calgary Flames to their only Stanley Cup championship at the end of the 1988-89 season, his final season playing professional hockey.
Fast forward to sometime around 2009 or 2010. At the time, I was a news anchor/reporter at CBS affiliate KPAX-TV in Missoula but whenever the local junior hockey team, the Missoula Maulers, had a home game, I volunteered to shoot video for the late night news. Why? Because I've loved hockey ever since I lived in Calgary for grades five through seven, and later took up the game myself in 2003.
It was a typical home game for the Maulers. I showed up early, as per usual, looked across the way and there he was. It was Lanny McDonald standing in Maulers bench area. I found out later that he owns a couple of restaurants in Montana - one of them in Missoula. Since we had some time before the game started and nobody was with him, I walked through the barricades to the far side of the ice and walked into the bench with my camera, shook his hand and introduced myself.
I don't remember exactly what we talked about except that I said something like, "So, how did you like your time with the Calgary Centennials?" That took him a little off guard. He's known as a Calgary Flames legend who became the first player to have his number retired by the team. He also played with the Toronto Maple Leafs and is the only member of the old Colorado Rockies enshrined into the Hockey Hall of Fame. In his pre-NHL days, he played two years in Lethbridge and two more in Medicine Hat but only six games for the Centennials during the 1970-71 season. "How did you know that?" he asked. I told him I'd visited the Stampede Corral in Calgary several times when I was a kid and knew of his hockey lore, including his days with the Centennials.
After a five-minute chat or so, it was game time - time for me to claim a spot along the board to shoot and for him to walk out on the ice for the ceremonial puck drop. A great guy and ambassador for the game, it was an honor to meet and spend a few minutes with him. Thanks Lanny!
"It's a different brand of basketball." Those words came from my son-in-law as we watched an NBA playoff game, my first time watching an entire NBA game in several years. He's right.
No motion. No passing. Just clear out, jab step, crossover dribble, step up, step back, push off, forced contact, 1-on-1, 1-on-2, 1-on-whoever and on and on and on. It didn't matter which team had possession of the basketball either.
Apparently, gone are the days of working the ball inside, driving strong to the hoop, utilizing the pick-and-roll and setting screens. What blatantly and obviously stood out the most to me was the lack of offense or really anybody in the key. And that offensive philosophy was the same for both teams. Teammates space themselves out beyond the three-point line and look to launch, often forcing, long, ugly forced three-point shots.
Nobody in the key...n-o-b-o-d-y!
Breaking news: an NBA player (okay, he's a defender) is spotted in the key
It's just not the basketball I grew up playing and watching on the collegiate level or even in the NBA. If I had try to force the modern NBA way back with my first organized team, as a young elementary-age recreational league or junior high school player, I'd be on the bench. Back then, even with kids just learning the team game, it was about passing, teamwork, creating good shots and going to the basketball. The closer, the better.
Today's NBA is almost solely about long-distance shooting including logo three-pointers. When it's not, it's about one guy holding the ball for 6, 8, 12 seconds and then chucking it up. It's ugly.
Some would say I'm just grumpy. Okay, I get it, I'm an old guy. The game is different. But I'm not alone in my criticism either. Charles Barkley, a fellow old guy and one recognized as a top-50 all-time professional player, criticizes today's NBA for a lack of team play and an overreliance on individuals forcing things. He's not wrong.
Oh well, there's always the college game or high school or even junior high. I do love the game. I played organized or pick up for the majority of my 60-plus years. I'll just swallow hard and accept it for what it is - a different brand of basketball.
Looking out, the view is beautiful. Looking up, not so much.
What we wanted to do was beautify, or at least make it not as ugly, so the porch of the shop house was more inviting. The question was how? With our financial focus on the inside of the structure, money was tight. We didn't have enough old fir flooring when we rebuilt our home after thefireeight years earlier so we needed another solution to cover it up.
One day, we noticed a bunch of bundles of long wooden strips on our neighbor's property. Then, while surfing on Facebook Marketplace, I saw a posting for "free kindling." It was obviously the same place where he found his wood. I sent a Facebook message seeking information. The response directed me to set a date, time and then show up at the old lumber mill in Bonner, just the other side of Missoula. I asked to borrow my son-in-law Kenny's long trailer and I was good to go on a weekday during my lunch break.
Upon arrival, the forklift driver told me to pick out a bundle or two and he would load them. I chose one large bundle of 12-foot and 16-foot pine strips, plus another bundle of long, slender planks. It was obvious the wood was not sellable because it was warped and of different widths. But hey, free is free, right? After getting loaded, I strapped it down and drove back to work.
Later that evening, the question was how to get it off the trailer. Lori and I could not move it at all. I texted the Redneck Master, Kenny, who came to the rescue. Since I already had straps around the bundles, he attached another and used the winch on the old Parowan farm truck, now his plow truck, to carefully roll the bundle off the trailer, without damaging the railing. It was yet another nod to his redneck brilliance.
With that task checked off, Lori and I spent the next several evenings using the chop saw and nail gun to cut and attach the wood strips and planks to the beams of the 8-foot by 20-foot ceiling. Since all of the boards were warped, some much worse than others, we used the saw to chop some of the warp out of them. It was a tedious process, but a fun project to do together. Again, like when we laid flooring in the house, Lori showed off her ability to use the chop saw and now, the nail gun. Like she exclaimed several times, "If my Dad could only see me now!"
After lots of measuring, cutting and nailing over several days, we had an almost finished product. All that was left to do was to stain it. As a guy who has enjoyed painting or staining 15 to 18 houses over my lifetime, staining is not for the weak hearted. Let me clarify. Staining a house isn't that bad at all. I've stained six of them. But this project called for staining a ceiling above our heads instead of the side of a building. It was messy and sticky and just plain no fun. However, in the end, we had ourselves a good-looking, dark walnut final product, similar in color to the deck posts and building trim. And more importantly, it no longer detracted from the view looking out into the Ponderosa pine forest.
The July-August issue of Bugle magazine landed on my desk on a late spring morning. I thumbed through it, as I had some so many times before, looking over the table of contents, headlines, photo essay, feature stories, ads, coloring of the images and graphics, and then flipped to the masthead, which lists the editors and organizational leadership. For the first time in 13 years, my name was not included.
The turning of the page of my Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) career began in early 2025. While working at my desk late in the afternoon, the CEO poked in his head and asked if I could join him in his office. Over the next 50 minutes, he laid out his vision to expand our advocacy work and boost its public outreach. Then, citing my background as a broadcast journalist for 24 years, he basically offered me a new position basically said, "You would be good at this." He asked that I take the weekend to discuss it with my wife and get back to him the following Monday.
I beganworkingat RMEF in May 2012. I walked into headquarters on a Thursday morning at 8 o'clock, some nine hours after anchoring the final KPAX-TV 10 o'clock newscast of the television ratings period. It was thefinal newscastof my TV career. My new title at RMEF was director of public relations. When my six-month probation came to an end, my supervisor asked that I take on a new responsibility and the new title of director of communications. With it came supervision of the Bugle magazine staff.
So, for the next 13 years I worked with the four editors, executive team leadership and members of other departments, RMEF members and volunteers to help produce the bimonthly magazine. It was a great learning experience to work with talented editors, freelancer writers and photographers, and others. Over that time, I had other duties added to my plate and several other titles and office locations.
All of the Bugle magazines produced during my 13 years working with the magazine staff
Back to 2025 and the decision-making process about the new position. When I got home from work, I stood in our kitchen talking to Lori. I told her about my meeting with Kyle, his vision, the new position and what its future could look like. The more I rehashed our conversation, the more excited I became. By the time I was done explaining, it was done deal. I was ready to turn the page and transition into new duties. I told Kyle exactly that the following Monday morning.
While I still attend Bugle planning meetings as my schedule permits, the Bugle staff has a new supervisor. Now, my focus is on state and federal legislation, state wildlife commission meetings, conferences, legal happenings and court cases, and other issues that impact our mission. New initiatives and working orders are to come. I'm both grateful and excited for what lies ahead.
We had searched for years but simply could not find him. No signs on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, nothing. No obituary. No online mentions. Just nothing. Where was Mel Spencer?
And here we were 40 years later, all together again as college roommates. Well, almost all together. Six of us -Al & Gary Long, Roger Johnson, Mike Toth, my brother Alan and me- traveled from different parts of the country to meet up for a reunion at a beautiful lake house on the shoreline of Lake Coeur d'Alene in North Idaho. There were three notable absences. Rick Jones planned to make the trip but got sick at the last minute and had to stay home. My brother Kerry could not get off work. And then there was Mel. Where was he?
Left to right: Alan, Al, Mike, Roger, me & Gary
I moved into the blue house just south of the BYU campus in January of 1985 and lived there through the summer of 1986. I shared a room with Roger my first semester and Mel the next three. Depending on the comings and goings of others, I was either the youngest or second-youngest of the nine guys living there but soon found myself among good friends. Rick, Gary and Al were from Topeka. Us Holyoak boys grew up in Wichita. Roger was from Maryland, Mike from Wisconsin and Mel from Idaho. Because of the heavy Kansas influence, the blue house was known as Kansas House for a little while before I moved in. Four guys lived upstairs and the other five downstairs, so it was also later called Planet of the Apes and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Mostly, we just called it the Blue House.
Above is a video Alan put together and showed while we were all together. It's worth noting that we booed when the light blue apartment at the :15 mark popped up on the screen, which is the building the owners built after tearing down the blue house as soon as we all moved out of it.
Of course, we all spent the majority of our time studying and pursuing our individual academic degrees. However, we had fun along the way too, including group dates, Sunday meals of roast, mashed potatoes and gravy (that always seemed to attract different groups of girls), a BYU co-rec ultimate frisbee intramural championship, a runner-up finish in the men's division and a serious run at the men's intramural basketball title. It featured a field of 300+ teams. We made it to the final eight before bowing out in a one-possession game. Together, there was much light-hearted taunting, dogpiles, pranks, watching "church of the round ball" and "church of the oblong ball," four-square battles, movie watching and laugher. Most of all, these guys became my brothers. One of them even, Al, went on a date with my future wife the day before I did. And two others sang at my wedding reception.
The reunion spawned from a 2024 photo with Rick and Al. What would it be like if we could get the whole entire gang back together again? Alan took that thought and ran with it. He formed a group text thread with everyone on it. Everyone, that is, except Mel. Alan had made contact with Mel's family a number of years earlier and found out Mel was dealing with a condition of some sort that restricted him to a wheelchair, but that was years ago. Unfortunately, Alan's link to Mel went silent and the communication ended.
Anyway, everyone agreed it would be great to get together. We chose the Coeur d'Alene lake house because Mike knew the people who owned it and let us stay there for free. One by one, the six of us trickled into town and there we were living under the same roof again, even though it was just for a handful of days.
We really didn't do anything that big or crazy - no expensive excursions or anything like that. Mostly, we reverted to what we did four decades earlier - just lots of sitting around, laughter, jokes and reminiscing while playing a lot of games. There was no awkwardness. It was like we had been apart for 40 minutes, not 40 years.
Our reunion home base - thanks for hooking us up, Mike
Not a bad view from the back deck
Perhaps the highlight was the first full night when we were together. It was labeled a "Here's what I've been up to the last 40 years" program. With Rick and Kerry on video calls, each of us took five to 15 minutes to let the other guys know what we had been up to since leaving the blue house - careers, travels, church involvement, marriage, kids, grandkids, life experiences and challenges, etc. At the end of each presentation came this query, "Okay, any questions?" Then the other guys could chime in and ask whatever they wanted, make comments and we were all off and laughing again. It was crystal clear that the brotherhood, admiration and respect that we formed back in the mid-1980s, was still alive.
Our planned program started at 6 p.m. local time or 9 p.m. for Rick back on the East Coast. It was still rolling at midnight (his time) when Rick bailed out to go to bed because he had to go to work the next day. It ended on an up note as Kerry started telling stories from back in the day ranging from basketball to blue house pranks. Everyone joined in and the hilarity continued. It was perfect. Or it would have been, if Mel would have been with us or online. Where was he?
The next morning was Friday - our last full day together. Despite a drizzly kind of day, we drove into Coeur d'Alene and the six of us took a mid-to-late-morning stroll around the boardwalk. Then we walked through The Resort, checking menus and trying to figure where to grab lunch. We decided to leave the ritzy restaurants behind, head back outside and walk a block and a half to Paul Bunyan Famous Burgers. Once back at the lake house, it was lots of laid back shooting the breeze and playing games before we capped the evening by watching a movie together.
One thing we did do back in the day at the blue house is watch (a lot of) movies
We had a local take this photo of us and later had some fun with it since it looked like Roger was the lead singer and we his backup singers. Names we came up with included RJ & the Blues Brothers, RJ & the Leftovers, Roger & the Blue Man Group
After the show, several of us got on our phones or computers and went into an advanced search mode for Mel. We did find a couple of leads earlier in the day. Gary contacted a former church leader where Mel grew up. The man said he would try to track down Mel's brother who then might have information about Mel. Roger had made a key discovery when he found Mel on LinkedIn. That was a breakthrough because there are a bazillion Mel or Melvin Spencers on LinkedIn. What jumped out is Mel has his home base listed as Apex, North Carolina. At last, we had a geographic region to hone in on.
I found a Facebook group page for our church in Apex. There was an email address so I dropped a line explaining who I was and who we were looking for. Then, because of my church clerk responsibilities, it dawned on me that I could access the churchwide leadership directory. I typed Apex, North Carolina, in the search bar and a list of leadership with names and contact info popped up. And then, BAM, there it was! Daniel Greco's name showed up with his phone number. Not only was Daniel a family favorite when he served as a full-time missionary in Lolo a decade or more ago, but we remained Facebook friends and both he and his brother have been in my fantasy hockey league since then. By now, it was about 2 a.m. at Daniel's house back in North Carolina but I dropped him a text asking if he happened to know anything about Mel. I was hoping we would hear back when he got up the next day.
Al left early Saturday morning for Spokane to catch his flight home. Mike would drive Gary and Roger to the airport so they could fly out later in the afternoon while Alan and I would drive to my place in Montana. About 8:30 my phone beeped with a text notification. It was Daniel: "We've known the Spencers for a long time! Mel has actually been very sick. He has Parkinson's and is not doing well. I can give you his wife's contact info." Her number followed. I read the text to the guys and we gave Myungha, Mel's wife, a call. It rang two times, three times, four times. "Sure hope she picks up the random number," one of the guys said. Then, "Hello?" I told her who I was, that I was one of Mel's old college roommates, that we had been searching for him for years and a number of us were together at that very moment. Then Alan said, "Has Mel ever said anything about the guys in the blue house?" Myungha started to laugh. "Yes, he has told us all about you," she said.
She went on to tell us that Mel was in poor shape. He had been in a care center for seven months as the disease had taken its toll. Mel was intubated, could not speak and no longer had command of his body or appendages. We asked if there was any way at all that we could talk to him so he could at least hear our voices. Myungha said she was going to be with Mel in two hours and while he may look unresponsive, she clarified that his mind is still sharp and he understands. She said she would call us back once she arrived and was with him. After getting off the phone, we called Rick and Kerry and told them of developments. Each of them said they would make themselves available. And then we waited.
Two hours later, Myungha texted that they were ready. I let her know that Gary was going to Facetime her. Moments later, we saw a cheerful Myungha and the video chat began. After years of looking for him, there was Mel laying on his back in a bed. One by one, we each greeted him, told him how much we missed, how much we appreciated him and gave him brief individual life updates. All the time, Myungha held the phone above him so we could see him and he could see us. Rick and Kerry also called in and they, too, spoke to Mel.
Toward the end of the call, Kerry jumped in and recited from memory (somehow) a song that he and I and maybe Mike wrote back in the day. Kerry said it went to the tune of Deck of the Halls:
Who's the one we all love? Mel ma Mel ma Mel, ma Mel, Mel, Mel. Who's so tall he stands above us? Mel ma Mel ma Mel, ma Mel, Mel, Mel. Out of college, he'll make much moolah. Mel ma Mel ma Mel, ma Mel, Mel, Mel. Boolah, Boolah, Boolah, Boolah. Mel ma Mel ma Mel, ma Mel, Mel, Mel!
At that moment, you could see a hint of a smile. No, it was more than a hint. "You guys made Mel Smile!!" Myungha later texted me. We each said our final goodbyes, expressed our love to Mel and wished him and Myungha the very best. And just like that, the call was over.
We added Myungha to the blue house text group and we continued to communicate. It was touching to see her message to us all:
"I wanted to say thank you so much for the very special FaceTime with Mel and all you Blue House Gang guys! 😀 Mel was so touched to see each of you, I had to wipe away his tears of gladness. I’m so glad I finally got to meet you all. We knew about you guys already even though you didn’t meet us in person. Mel shared many memories with the girls and I. I thought you would all like to know the story of what’s happened to Mel. Please share this story with others in your group who are wondering about him. Mel was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the winter of 2017. We were so shocked because he seemed so healthy, active and worked so hard at work, church and home. No one including him believed that he had PD. It progressed slowly for the first 3 years and then the symptoms became more obvious over the next few years. He got Covid in September of 2024 and hasn’t recovered since. That has led him to have lung problems. The surgery didn’t help him. Now he has a tracheostomy, ventilator and feeding tube. The doctors said he is not going to recover from it. None of us knows when the Lord will bring him Home. Mel is in good spirits generally. He has been faithful and served the Lord for all his life. He is finally coming back home next Tuesday. He hasn’t been home for over 7 months! We are looking forward to it. Thanks again, it was really wonderful to see all of you and hope you enjoy your get-together!"
So after years of searching, everything came together and did so in a mere matter of hours. Our reunion was so great but capping it off by not only being together to find Mel but having the opportunity to express tender thoughts and feelings to and for him was indeed a miracle. God bless you Mel and Myungha! Here's to the miracle of finding Mel!
(Mel passed away on May 31, 2025, two weeks to the day after we communicated with him. RIP Mel. 💔)
Back row: Roger, Kerry & Alan Middle row: Me, Al & Mike Front row: Mel, Randy Woodworth & Rick (1985)
