Buddy: A living legend of jazz

Success is nothing new to Buddy DeFranco.

The jazz clarinet player from Whitefish is being honored Saturday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as a "Living Jazz Legend," along with such other greats as Dave Brubeck and Wynton Marsalis.

He can add that to other prestigious honors he has received, including being named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts and being inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame.

But it's the career, more than the honorary titles, which really takes your breath away. DeFranco's resume reads like a "Who's Who" of classic jazz. He worked with Tommy Dorsey, Gene Krupa, Count Basie, Billie Holliday, Art Blakey, Charlie Parker, Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie and a host of others. He has also recorded more than 160 albums, and he's still going strong.

DeFranco has owned a home in Whitefish for many years, and divides his time between there and Florida. In addition to keeping up with his performing and recording schedule, DeFranco participates every April in The Buddy DeFranco Jazz Festival at the University of Montana in Missoula.

For the sake of music lovers everywhere, we hope DeFranco gets to enjoy his status as a living legend for many years to come.

This could be Levi Leipheimer's best year ever. The Butte native and former Whitefish High School student won the Amgen Tour of California earlier this week, having never trailed in the eight-day race.

With the Tour de France a little more than four months away, Leipheimer is staking his claim as one of the best cyclists in the world. He's already a three-time top-10 Tour de France finisher. When the wheels start spinning in London on July 7, the world will be keeping tabs on one of Montana's finest.

Leipheimer, who trained with biking phenom Lance Armstrong, honed his skills in Whitefish for a time, but it wasn't cycling - it was skiing. He transferred to Whitefish High in 1991 to train at Big Mountain for the Super G races.

Later, a terrible Super G wreck put him out of skiing and into cycling full time. He seems to be made of the same stuff as Armstrong, an athlete who can stare down adversity and overcome it. Expect great things from Leipheimer; we're betting he'll deliver.

THERE ARE TIMES when parents' aspirations and their children's activities don't seem to mix too well.

Those times often revolve around youth sports, when even the most well-meaning parents can get a little too involved in the game.

A recent assault at a high school basketball game in Libby demonstrates an extreme example of out-of-control parents. In this case, the father of an Arlee player punched his son's coach in the head - and then the dad justified the assault by claiming he was retaliating for what he considered poor treatment of his son.

The father was charged with disorderly conduct and assaulting a sports official and he may be banned from future Arlee sporting events.

A high school principal who witnessed the punch called the episode the worst display of sportsmanship he had seen in his 28 years as an educator.

It's also a grim reminder of the inclination of some people to resort to violence to resolve a dispute that never should have reached that level.

It would seem that there are far more civilized ways to address concerns about coaching.