ORRDINARY PEOPLE THE ARTIST

Dennis Cole gets the picture.

The Courier's new editorial cartoonist always has since, well, the early 1940s. He was a boy in Glasgow. It was during the war.

“Oh, I've always played around with art as far as I can look back,” Dennis says. “When I was 6 or 7 years old, a friend came over and taught me how to draw stick men. Then I tried to redraw funny book covers.”

Unfortunately, the early Cole collection is long gone. The self-taught artist drew his early works in a scrapbook that his mother, Hilda, threw out in the tradition of baseball card tossing moms everywhere.

But the folksy slice of Western Americana that is his artwork can be found, near and far, in homes of generations of his fans. As welcome as Dennis'  editorial cartoons are on the Courier's Opinion page these days, the ink-on-paper sketches really don't do justice for the colorful acrylic paint masterpieces he continues to create on request and sell from his home.

The retired railroad man's artistic niche at this point in life is painting scenes – of trains, mountains, wildlife, ranch land and cowboys – on saw blades, clocks and frying pans. The biggest ones might be 3 feet across.

“I saw other guys do it,” he says, “and I decided to do it, too.”

Dennis also paints one-of-a-kind greeting cards, keeping an eye open for inscription ideas from T-shirts, greeting cards on store shelves, bumper stickers, whatever.

When the air base was here, he took to drawing pen and ink originals on shoulder blades of deer and cows. Sam Allie, then the owner of Sam's Supper Club off Highway 2, liked what he saw. He displayed and sold them in his popular establishment, many to enlisted airmen and officers, bringing in extra cash for the artist and businessman.

That was a first for Dennis, making money off his talent.

He later became a familiar seller on the bazaar scene, but he says he “stopped doing that a few years ago because I couldn't get around.”

Now 73, it's been more than 10 years since he survived a couple of heart attacks and went through open-heart surgery in Billings. His other pastimes now include playing poker machines in the casinos and serving as president of Valley County Senior Citizens, calling bingo games at the senior center.

Dennis worked at the Glasgow railroad station from high school to retirement for Great Northern, Burlington Northern and finally Burlington Northern Santa Fe. He was a clerk and agent, manning the station, calling crews and dealing with the freight docks.

He took an early retirement at age 59 as the station's last clerk/agent when computerization eliminated the need for the position – and says he left on his terms. He says BNSF offered him a $100,000 buyout, but he held out for more: three full years of paid salary and benefits that he would have earned through age 62.

He and his late wife, Judy, had six boys and a girl – who all, unlike Dennis, have moved on from their native Glasgow to other places in Montana, Indiana, Iowa and Oregon.

And the artist, he just keeps on keeping on.

“I doodle,” he says. “I'm retired and have nothing else to do, so I draw a lot.”
His new gig – drawing editorial cartoons based on ideas of the newspaper staff and himself – isn't his first with the Courier. He's sketched for a number of jobs over the years for Courier Printing and production manager Stan Sonsteng.

“He does amazing work,” Stan says.

Dennis, meanwhile, says he has no favorite piece. Not one special sketch. Not one particular painting.

“No, not really,” he says. “There's so many. I've drawn so many pictures.”

Orrdinary People appears in the Glasgow Courier. To suggest special people, please contact Jim Orr at 406-228-9301 or publisher@glasgowcourier.com.