Ralph W. 'Bud' Leavitt Jr. - The Columnist and The Television Host

The Columnist and The Television Host

And, in the early days of television, Leavitt hosted one of the first outdoor shows on national television. In 1953 Maine's first TV station went on the air, and asked sportswriter Leavitt if he would anchor a show on the themes he wrote about in his column. The Bud Leavitt Show debuted that year as one of the first local programs on the air in Maine. For the next 20 years Leavitt appeared every Saturday night to talk about the pressing issues of a Maine outdoorsman: how to remove a fishhook; the death of a favorite dog; snoeshowing and moose hunting and salmon fishing.

That Leavitt's newspaper permitted him to appear on a competing news outlet startled no one. "They had to have him," said Bangor Daily News managing editor Mike Dowd of the demand for the popular columnist. "He had to have it. So became multimedia before the term was invented."

Leavitt's last show on local Maine television was taped in 1973, but in 1978 the Maine Public Broadcasting Network asked the sportswriter to host a new show. That show, called Woods and Waters, went on to become a public TV sensation. Within a year it was broadcast nationally. The Outdoor Writers of America later rated it the nation's best outdoor-oriented program. The show's success launched the local Maine sportswriter into the national consciousness: Leavitt was featured as a guest several times on the ABC show American Sportsman, and was a frequent guest on national radio programs.

Sometimes Leavitt was joined on his Maine TV show by friends like broadcaster Curt Gowdy, or baseball players Brooks Robinson or Ted Williams. "He was to outdoor journalism what Norman Rockwell was to art," wrote longtime Bangor Daily News sports columnist Larry Mahoney. The comparison was apt. Leavitt was not known for his eloquent turns-of-phrase, but for his directness and lack of artifice—what some might call his 'Maine-ness.'

Thanks to his notoriety, Leavitt kept a running correspondence with people that he might never have met. His friendship with Albany, New York mayor Erastus Corning 2nd, for instance, lasted decades, and the pair's letters about angling are among the papers collected in Corning's archives.

Leavitt's friendship with baseball player Ted Williams spanned decades, and the two were frequent fishing buddies. Leavitt had been sent to Boston's Fenway Park in 1939 to write about the Boston Red Sox, where he met Williams, then a first-year rookie already making a name for himself as a slugger. Overhearing that the cub sportswriter was from Maine, Williams asked about the fishing up north. A lifelong friendship ensued.

"One journalist with whom Williams had a genuine friendship was the late Bud Leavitt, former sports editor and outdoor writer for the Bangor Daily News," wrote Tony Chamberlain of The Boston Globe. "Leavitt fished often with Williams in the lakes and streams of Maine and Canada. Most of their fishing up north was for salmon, and Williams fished with Leavitt near the writer's home along the Penobscot River.'