[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              PHIL TAWNEY

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, let me read you the opening line of a 
story in this morning's Missoulian:

       Phil Tawney, a staunch wildlife supporter, environmental 
     activist and a Democratic party mainstay for more than two 
     decades, died in Missoula, Monday afternoon of complications 
     from leukemia.

  It is a short, stark, sentence. It gets the essential facts. It is 
good journalism. But this time, it leaves out everything.
  Phil Tawney was a big man. A man whose soul was great enough to unite 
and transcend opposites. In Phil, passion for the great cause, united 
with reason and judgment in the details of legislation. Deep concern 
for the future joined with great joy in the present. Boundless 
idealism, met practical, hands-on knowhow.
  As much as any person I have known, Phil represented what I believe 
is best about Montana. If you knew Phil, you were inspired by his love 
of Montana, his idealism, his integrity, and his courage in battling 
the leukemia that took his life.
  Phil's Montana was Normal Maclean's Montana: A land of vast open 
spaces, and mist hanging in narrow mountain passes; of biting winds in 
the winter and dazzling sun in the Big Sky summer; of the elk hunts 
Phil took each fall; of snow that crunches under your boots, and 
muscular fish hanging at the bottom of streams so powerful that even a 
man as big and strong as Phil has trouble keeping his feet. Phil did as 
much as any Montanan of our time to preserve this land for his children 
and ours.
  For over two decades--from the day in 1973, when at the age of 23, 
Phil and his wife Robin founded the Montana Environmental Information 
Center until yesterday--Phil was perhaps the leading influence on our 
State's fish, wildlife, and habitat protection programs. His ideas on 
stream preservation and mine reclamation became Montana law, and models 
for the Nation. Most recently, as a lawyer for the Rocky Mountain Elk 
Foundation, he worked with me to preserve thousands of acres of elk 
habitat north of Yellowstone National Park.
  Through these years, Phil was always the source of good humor and 
steady, solid advice. He believed in people.
  And throughout his involvement in politics and the conservation 
movement, he understood something we could all live by in this town. He 
understood that reasonable people could disagree without being 
disagreeable.
  All this would have been extraordinary by itself. But Phil also had a 
successful legal practice. He served with distinction as the executive 
director of the Montana Democratic Party. And most important of all, 
Phil was a devoted husband to Robin and father to his children Land, 
Mikal, and Whitney.
  He was always thinking about what he could do for somebody else. For 
a friend. For his family. For posterity. Never for himself. And perhaps 
because he never thought about himself, while his life may have been 
short it was fine and full. That is why, as Missoula Mayor Kemmis said 
last night, somehow Phil always made you feel good about just being 
alive.
  Mr. President, it is a terrible loss. Phil Tawney takes leave of his 
family and friends much too soon. But with us forever is a mighty 
legacy, and a challenge to match his commitment and achievement with 
our own.
  I imagine Phil departing with a smile and some words of encouragement 
for the rest of us--like Valiant at the close of the Pilgrim's 
Progress:

       ``My sword, I give to him that shall succeed me in my 
     pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. 
     My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me, 
     that I have fought his battles, who will now be my 
     rewarder.'' So he passed over, and the trumpets sounded for 
     him on the other side.
  Several Senators addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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