Bill Bradley has departed this world but he left his mark. He was assistant managing editor of this newspaper when I joined the staff back in 1947. Later in his career he launched out on his own with a series of livestock-related newspapers and, still later, Farm Light and Power.
He was one of the best agricultural journalists to be seen on these western Prairies. He enjoyed what he did and this came out in his writing.
Any time you saw Bill Bradley with Grant MacEwan, Jack Byers, Dick Painter, Tom Melville-Ness, Miriam Green Ellis, Harry Hays and Al Ewen, you could figure some new stories were brewing.
Read Also
Crop profitability looks grim in new outlook
With grain prices depressed, returns per acre are looking dismal on all the major crops with some significantly worse than others.
Bill was popular with stockmen and this helped when he set up his own newspaper.
However, he was a journalist enough that he blew the whistle on a badly kept secret in the cattle industry. This related to dwarfism in Hereford cattle at a time when all the emphasis in the purebred industry was on small, compact animals.
The breeders were attempting to quietly remove the blood lines causing the problem without getting any adverse publicity for the breed.
Unfortunately, some breeders were unloading their genetically impaired animals on unsuspecting ranchers. Bill got a lot of criticism at the time for publishing this information in The Western Producer, but it was a story that needed to be written.
Bill has a place in the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame and, having had him as a teacher, I can say he’s in my hall of fame too.
My sympathies go to Dorothy, Tom and the rest of the family.
