Wordsmith loves to tell people's stories

When the state of Alaska filed charges against Exxon Valdez skipper Joe Hazelwood for one of the biggest oil-spill disasters of all time, it was Mary Pat Murphy who broke the story.

“It was a worldwide scoop for about six hours,” she recalled.

Then Reuters and every other news service on the planet began clamoring to do their own stories on the major environmental disaster.

Murphy, a Kalispell native and freelance writer in the Flathead Valley, was working for The Anchorage Times when the oil spill occurred in March 1989. She was in Juneau covering the Legislature and, luckily for her, she was good friends with the assistant attorney general.

“I was on a dinner date on a Saturday night and he tracked me down” with news of the charges against the skipper, she said. In short, he knew she’d want the story.

It wasn’t the only time there was excitement in the Times newsroom for Murphy.

With the other editors out of town one October day in 1986, Murphy, the assistant city editor, was the ranking person in charge when a “seriously disturbed” man took the publisher and his daughter hostage and threatened to kill them with an assault rifle.

“It was pretty incredible trying to put out a newspaper while we were locked out of the building as police searched for bombs,” Murphy said, recalling how she and the staff mobilized in the alley to begin covering the story.

The perpetrator had thrown smoke bombs and firecrackers into the newspaper building on his way upstairs to confront the publisher, and the building quickly was evacuated. While at gunpoint, the publisher, then 79, and his daughter managed to wrestle the man to the ground and restrain him until officers arrived.

Outside, Murphy and her crew used the one mobile computer they had to get the story out. In the days before cell phones and manageable laptops, it was a feat. Police kept everyone out of the building in case the perpetrator had a bomb.

“We had the story literally outside the back doors and couldn’t get inside to tell it,” she said. “It was satisfying to be able to get the story and overcome all those obstacles.”

MURPHY doesn’t ever remember wanting to do anything else except write for a living, although there was a time as a young child that she yearned to be a cowboy.

She may have inherited some of her passion for writing. Her father, Jim Murphy, a local attorney and state legislator, wrote a book about the Conrads, one of Kalispell’s founding families, and her mother, Sylvia, 93, who lives on Flathead Lake, wrote history books about the Lakeside area and Camp Tuffit on Lake Mary Ronan.

Murphy took on leadership roles in her chosen profession early on, serving for a semester as editor of the Flathead High School’s newspaper, The Arrow, and working as news editor of The Kaimin at the University of Montana, where she earned degrees in journalism and history/political science in 1969.

She also completed an internship at the Daily Inter Lake. After college she worked as a reporter for the Independent Record in Helena, then joined the Associated Press staff and worked in Helena, Omaha and Seattle.

A temporary assignment as a legislative reporter for AP in Juneau led to a 22-year stint in Anchorage and Juneau.

“I loved Alaska and the excitement associated with the changes brought by construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline,” she said.

With her background in history, Murphy also found it fascinating to meet people who had led the statehood movement in Alaska. It was “a real sense of history not available in many other places,” she added.

She left the newspaper business after nine years at the Times and went to work for a state senator who was running for governor in 1990.

Later she found employment with the state of Alaska, first as a legislative aide and later as the director of the Media Support Center, a public information service for state agencies. When the service was cut by an incoming governor, Murphy was just six months shy of becoming vested into the state’s retirement system, so she scrambled to find another legislative job until she qualified for retirement.

“Working for the state of Alaska was the best career decision I ever made,” she said. “Five years of work qualified me for a pension and free medical insurance for life.”

With her pension secure, the time seemed right to return to Kalispell. And she has kept on writing. She currently handles all the publicity for United Way and does freelance writing for Northwest Healthcare. Past projects include writing business stories for Horizon Air’s in-flight magazine.

“I love telling people’s stories,” she said.

Her work allows a comfortable schedule that leaves time for traveling, volunteer work and golf.

“I discovered a late passion for golf,” she confided with a smile. “I started six or seven years ago and suddenly I’m hooked.”

Murphy has always led an active life, hiking and loving the outdoors. In high school, she was a three-time state champion in the 220-yard dash. She also participated in O-Mok-See horse competitions such as pole-bending and barrel racing.

She’s currently president of the Friendship Force in the Flathead Valley and is involved with the Philanthropic Educational Organization. Murphy has served on various boards, including Central School Museum, Glacier National Park Associates and the Glacier Symphony & Chorale League.

Murphy lives along the Whitefish River near Kalispell on a 70-acre farm her father bought in 1972 as an investment and a place where she could keep her horse. She eventually bought the farm from her father. It’s a perfect place to pursue her love of gardening, a hobby that involves warding off the many deer that love snap peas, too.

There’s an interesting detail about her farm. As a teenager she rode her horse in that area and thought at the time it was “the perfect little farm.” Unbeknownst to her, her father likewise had discovered it and bought it.

And, Murphy reports, it’s still “the perfect little farm.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com