Songwriter Chuck Suchy honors friend with memorial concert

The kinship of two friends didn’t end when one left this life last November.

North Dakota songwriter and musician Chuck Suchy will honor the late Pete Skibsrud — his champion supporter, as well as a loyal ambassador to the Northwest Montana History Museum — with a memorial concert Nov. 5 at the museum.

Those who knew Skibsrud — and many folks did — knew him to be a community-minded, caring citizen, known not only for the historic bridge he bought to save from demolition, but more for the bridges he built to others throughout his life.

A folk musician, songwriter and farmer from Mandan, North Dakota, who has performed frequently in Kalispell and around Montana, Suchy has released seven albums, many on the well-known Flying Fish label, with songs ranging from ones that celebrate Burma-Shave road signs (“Burma Shave Boogie”), a 15-year-old who died saving her siblings during a 1920 snowstorm (“The Story of Hazel Miner”) and Indian motorcycles and father-son relationships (“Indian Dreamer”).

His long-standing gift for high-plains music, stellar guitar work and emotive singing earned him the title of North Dakota’s official troubadour during that state’s centennial celebration in 1989.

In 2019, Suchy performed on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage. He’s appeared twice on the “Prairie Home Companion,” was selected to perform for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and invited to be an artist-in-residence in Iceland.

Known for his storytelling songs, Suchy says his music today is rooted more in relationships and matters of the heart than its rural and plains roots.

Together with his wife Linda and their daughter, Suchy lives and works as a third-generation farmer and rancher on his grandparents’ farm in Mandan where he grew up. While for years he cultivated acreage of wheat and corn and raised hogs and chickens, the farm was eventually planted back to alfalfa, grass and permanent vegetation. Now it supports a small cow herd, which he markets primarily to grass-finished beef ranchers.

Suchy met Skibsrud while performing in Kalispell about 15 years ago.

“He walked into my life as a member of the audience,” Suchy said in an interview with the Inter Lake. “I was doing concerts at the KM Theater downtown, and at one of the first ones he just showed up. We visited afterwards and then he wrote me a letter and offered to help with promotion, taking tickets at the door, and selling CDs for me.”

Over the years Skibsrud would often call Suchy just to check in, and particularly in the latter years.

Skibsrud had played banjo since high school and Suchy says his friend felt a connection with him through the music.

“He always said, ‘I think we’re soul brothers, Chuck.’”

Skibsrud, who died at 76 in November 2021, was proud of his Norwegian roots. He lived simply and generously. He often made the rounds in downtown Kalispell, and he visited the Daily Inter Lake regularly to chat with the editorial staff and meet the new reporters.

“Pete had a fire, a zest for life,” Suchy said. “It was never so much about Pete, but about who he was with; it was always about others. I think he enriched himself through knowing other people and encouraging and helping them. That was where his heart was.”

Skibsrud was also known for undertaking special projects for his causes, making friends wherever he went.

After the Old Steel Bridge over the Flathead River was replaced in 2008, Skibsrud wanted to preserve the iconic wrought iron bridge built in 1894. While that never came to fruition, his maverick idea led to the creation of the sculpture, “Infinity Bridge,” symbolizing the merging of Bridge Academy and Laser Alternative School in fall 2013. He donated two 8-foot-long pieces of the bridge shortly before the schools merged to become Linderman Education Center. In 2014 Bigfork artist and sculptor Lee Proctor and his assistant Nate Adoretti then worked with the students to design and create the sculpture that graces the front lawn of the school on Third Avenue East.

“He saw value in that bridge, not only in its architecture and history, but in how it could serve the community,” Suchy said. Skibsrud had initially hoped to place it over the Stillwater River behind Flathead Valley Community College as a walking bridge.

“Other than the bridge project, which he was in the middle of settling at the time we met, as we got to know each other he talked often about his sons, his love and concern for them and that they would be OK,” Suchy said.

Community meant everything to Skibsrud and he demonstrated that everyday by engaging with his neighbors.

“As I’ve been getting ready for this concert I keep thinking I can call Pete for help,” Suchy said. “But I can’t call Pete. It tears me up, but with tears of fondness remembering all he did for me. He just loved seeing people come into the shows and selling CDs. I’d hear him cajoling, visiting with old friends and making new ones.”

For the last few concerts Skibsrud, admitting he was not a public speaker, told Suchy he wanted to introduce him and had been working hard on his introduction.

“So I was kind of bracing for some long-winded thing,” Suchy said. “He got up on stage, realized he had stage lights on him, and he said, ‘Well, uh, we all know why we’re here. Please welcome Chuck.”

"I knew of no one more dedicated to the Kalispell and Flathead Valley community than Pete Skibsrud,” said Jacob Thomas, former executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, who will introduce Suchy at the concert.

CONCERT DETAILS

The Pete Skibsrud Memorial Concert will take place at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, at the Northwest Montana History Museum.

Special guests include Lorin Hicks on harmonica, Lee Zimmerman on cello and Ed Boggs on mandolin.

A donation of $15 is suggested to cover Suchy’s travel expenses and support the museum.

The Northwest Montana History Museum is located at 124 Second Ave. E., in Kalispell. Call 406-756-8381 for more information.