Pete Mossey, former News editor and columnist, dies at 93
By COLLIN GALLANT on June 19, 2021.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com
Pete Mossey, who poked, skewered, massaged and promoted Medicine Hat during a 40-year-career as editor and columnist for the News, died on June 14.
It was a Monday.
His column, “Only on Monday,” appeared from the mid-1960s to 1993, when Mossey retired with a half-page column of thank you’s and other thoughts.
It ran alongside accolades from a host of local powerbrokers and national newspaper executives.
After his obituary appeared in Friday’s edition, Hatters and colleagues remembered him as a “lion” with a heart of gold who loved Medicine Hat as much as he loved the newspaper business.
“He really was a legend – that’s the only word for him,” said Wayne Moriarty, the former publisher of the Vancouver Sun, who was local sports editor under Mossey in the 1980s.
“This was an era when the three most important people in any town were the mayor, the police chief and the newspaper editor,” said Moriarty. “He had the ear of the community, and the ear of every important person in Medicine Hat.
“The column itself, it had authority, and he was comfortable flexing that authority.”
After several years of failing health, Mossey returned to Medicine Hat from retirement base in British Columbia this year to be closer to family and live in Riverview Care Centre. He was 93.
Family members said his was “a life of adventures” both navigating the local scene and on press tour junkets, where he met a lengthy list of celebrities and fed his love of travel.
“He never once complained about work – he loved it and loved his reporters,” said daughter Patty Mossey.
“I guess he was a bit of a tough old bugger. He grew up in a tough neighbourhood, and had to act tough a lot of the time, but he’d give the shirt off his back.”
Mossey grew up in coal mining towns of southern B.C., and joined the News after his airforce discharge at CFB Suffield, and having married local girl Dorothy Ayling. He wrote sports for $20 a week and – as was his nature – began promoting seniors hockey and other endeavours.
He moved to work at the Powell River News before returning to the Hat in 1963, and eventually took over the paper that was a training ground in the Southam chain, mentoring reporters, photographers and executives.
His talents were not lost on his higher ups, said Moriarty.
“He really could have gone anywhere, worked anywhere,” he said. “But he loved Medicine Hat.”
Here, he endlessly promoted and volunteered for a long list of community events and fundraisers, sportsman dinners. He founded of the News’ Santa Claus Fund, the Car-Calvacade (in which car dealers offered to take seniors and shut-ins out to look at Christmas lights), and aided food drives and other events.
“Pete was a tremendous supporter of the local business community, numerous civic events were promoted each year,” said Bill Yuill, a direct competitor with the News and Mossey back then as the head of Monarch Broadcasting, but also great friends.
“He was a lion in his chosen field, with a big heart, with open arms and with a twinkle in his eye.”
Sheri Murphy-Wright, former city hall reporter and eventually city editor of the News, said Mossey probably trained more top-notch journalists than anyone else in Canada. He was tailor fit for the role as well as Medicine Hat.
“He was a really the perfect ‘newspaper man’ in the old sense,” she said Friday.
“He had a real sense of justice, and some very strong rules about what it meant to put together a story that told both sides. And he really had a keen sense of Medicine Hat, the people and how far he could push people towards building a better community.”
Mossey set high standards, said longtime photographer Frank Webber, but allowed his staff latitude and was happy to promote pride in the newsroom.
In 1977 he captured the city’s 5-pin bowling title with pressmen as teammates, golfed and fished with reporters and just about everyone in town.
The farewell column of March 8, 1993 is a roll call of thank yous to fishing buddies and golf partners, organizers, salesmen who’d never steered him wrong and charity donors.
He also took potshots at lawyers, mused on local politics and offered a truce, though no apologies, to Mayor Ted Grimm. The two had a legendary feud that was stoked weekly as Mossey ended his column with “Good Night Ted” as if Grimm was reading the afternoon edition as the last thing before falling asleep.
Publisher John Weimer eventually put an end to the practise saying it was “getting stale.”
“In the newspaper business, you can have a lot of followers and a lot of people who maybe don’t like what you’re doing,” said Weimer. “Pete really did have a heart of gold, even though editorials may not have reflected it all the time. He held a lot of people to account, and he followed up.”
The final column details a generation of local movers and shakers – Honor Currie, Rick Filanti, Orv Kope, Fred Scherer, Rod Carry, and on and on – and those working to add pep to the city.
“Sorry for the length of this column,” Mossey concluded. “Our Hall of Fame proofreader extraordinaire was unavailable to do the editing.”
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