Breaking News: Butte Legend died Friday
Montana Son and Daredevil Evel Knievel Dead at 69
By Courtney Lowery, 11-30-07
Butte, Montana native Evel Knievel died today at age 69, according to news reports and postings at the daredevil’s official Web site, evelknievel.com.
Robert Craig “Evel” Knievel’s longtime friend Bill Rundle tells the Butte Montana Standard that Knievel died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
Knievel, a favorite son of Montana and a loyal Butte celebrity, had been suffering from pulmonary fibrosis for several years. In 2006 at Evel Knievel days in Butte, writer Seonaid Campbell wondered here if Evel’s trip home that summer might be his last.
In January, USA Today did an interview with the ailing Knievel, who was very much facing his own mortality after decades of cheating death. He said then: “I think about God a lot more than ever ... though I used to ask him, ‘Help me make a good jump.’ I’m awfully tough to get along with, but I’ll tell you what: I am a good person. I wish there was such a thing as reincarnation.”
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That decided, we flew the hump to some place called Butte. The moon was in flood, the night air crystalline, the city covered in ten inches of white stuff, the temperature at least 10 below. Once on the ground, the old Douglas chugged to a small terminal. The pilot jumped out of the plane, ran all the luggage into the terminal, pogo'd behind the counter, and proceeded to hawk bus tickets to Missoula. "We got maybe a fifty-fifty chance (well, maybe thirty-seventy) of landing there, but I'm willing to try. Gotta get back to Seattle tonight anyway."
Most of us took the bus home that night. My impression of the place called Butte? Tough town, best left to tough people.
Bobby's obit in the Mt Standard - a rag that usually argues copy editors are superfluous - appears to have been done by folks from Lee Enterprises, the parent publishing organization.
It's a good, sympathetic obituary which cites reminiscences of Butte locals about their old pal and their old haunts. The city, its mine heads, the Pit, bars, casinos, and people defined Bobby Knievel.
I think he would have agreed.
The service will be held Dec 10 at 11 AM at the Butte Civic Center. Best leave the leathers and Hogs at home: weather's bound to be cold.
It's a tough town.
I had a chance to meet and chat with Evel (Bob) in 1969 in North Hollywood, Ca. he was staying at the same place my family was staying on Ventura Blvd. At the time he was recovering from the Ceaser's Palace accident still on crutches.
I have always been thankful to him as I had a 3 yr old son also named Bob that while walking past the pool jumped right in the deep section and went straight to the bottom. Evel was setting in a chair near the pool and without hesitation got up and jumped in the pool and pulled my son out. We as a family have told this story over the years and how grateful we were to him. The ironic part of this is that the son he pulled out died on a motorcycle in November '04.
He was a really great person to talk with and I am sre my son will meet him again in Heaven.
God Bless his Family.
Very Truly,
Evon Habel
Elk Grove Village, Illinois