600 Hours of Edward

my data sheets. I think it is.
    I reach for my notebook and make my notations, and my data is complete.
    – • –
    As I could have predicted—although I didn’t, and thus have no proof that I could have done it—my father’s death is front-page news in this morning’s
Billings Herald-Gleaner.
I begin reading the article on the walk from the front door to the dining room, and then I sit down and finish it.
    By MATT HAGENGRUBER of the
Herald-Gleaner
staff
    Longtime Yellowstone County commissioner Ted Stanton, one of the most powerful and divisive politicians in theregion, died suddenly Thursday after collapsing at a West End golf course. He was sixty-four.
    Stanton’s death sent shock waves through the Yellowstone County political structure, rattling allies and foes alike, who noted that the county has lost a persuasive, at times bare-knuckled advocate for growth and business development.
    One of Stanton’s frequent opponents, fellow commissioner Rolf Eklund, said his presence would be greatly missed.
    “While I often didn’t see eye to eye with Ted on how the county should proceed, I always credited the depth of his vision and his powerful commitment to his ideals,” said Eklund, who was elected to the county commission in 1996, four years after Stanton. “He was gifted and strong and a real advocate for this county’s prosperity. I will miss him.”
    Stanton, a native of Texas who came to Montana in the mid-1960s as a young oil executive, broke onto the political scene in 1980, winning election to one of the two Ward 5 seats as a Billings city councilman. He worked tirelessly to move the council toward pro-business positions, and his advocacy for growth can be seen in the city’s persistent expansion to the west.
    On the council, he also flashed the combative style that, in many ways, defined his public image. In 1984, he challenged a popular mayor, Stephen Benoit, and emerged with a surprising victory by promising prosperity for a city that, at the time, was being lashed by collapsing home prices and the fallout from the energy bust.
    “He was, perhaps, a more driving, ambitious politician than we had seen,” said Benoit, reached for comment in Largo, Fla., where he now lives. “You have to rememberthat Billings, at that time, was still a fairly sleepy town. But I give Ted Stanton credit: he ran a tough, hard, clean race, and he won.”
    Stanton, however, chafed at Billings’s form of city government, which empowers not the mayor but the city administrator, and in his eight years in the post, he clashed repeatedly with a succession of city managers. But there was one constant: the city administrators came and went, and Stanton remained standing.
    In 1992, he ran for an open seat on the county commission, winning handily against three other candidates.
    “I look at it like this,” Stanton said in a 1993 interview, soon after joining the commission. “I could have stuck around city government for a while, trying to get through to a bunch of knuckleheads whose eye was on negotiating the length of a lunch break with the police union. Or I could go somewhere that would allow me to help make the whole region a better place to live and do business. It was an easy decision.”
    While Stanton’s rough-and-tumble style didn’t always sit well with fellow politicians, he was beloved among the business community in Yellowstone County, and he ran unopposed for reelection in 1994, 2000, and 2006.
    “If you go stand on the corner of Twenty-Fourth Street and Monad Road and look south and west, that’s all Ted Stanton,” said Billings developer Cody Clines, referring to the corridor of restaurants, auto dealerships, and big-box stores that drive much of the region’s commerce. “It’s his vision that made that happen. He’ll be missed.”
    Stanton, a Republican, had one notable misstep, where he broke with his base of support and nearly paid a highpolitical toll for doing so. He became an advocate for instituting a local-option sales tax in Yellowstone County, which he contended would allow the county to extract revenue from tourists passing through the region. He endured backlash from many quarters, particularly from constituents who endorse Montana’s no-sales-tax status. Stanton was heavily criticized in the press.
    “They’re just not ready for it,” Stanton said in a 2006 profile by the
Herald-Gleaner,
one of his frequent sparring partners over the years. “I accept that. I don’t agree