Asheville Paper Has 20-Page Billy Graham Tribute Ready For His Passing

By: Joe Strupp When legendary evangelist Billy Graham dies, the lengthy obituaries and newspaper tributes will no doubt be printed by the hundreds.

But few will likely reach the level of The Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, which has spent nearly 10 years preparing a massive goodbye tribute that stands at some 20 pages so far, according to editors.

As the largest daily paper near Graham's home in Montreat, N.C., the Citizen-Times has focused on Graham for decades, giving is wife, Ruth, her own eight-page tribute last summer upon her death.

"We've got 20 pages set to go already on the whole thing," Executive Editor Susan Ihne, who joined the paper two years ago, said of Rev. Graham's tribute. "On all of the missions he's done, his children, the crusades and he has at least five kids who are pastors of some sort."

At 88, Graham is not on his deathbed yet, editors say. But, after a health problem last summer that included intestinal bleeding and hospitalization, staffers realized such a tribute must be ready.

"It is anybody's guess," Dale Neal, a former religion reporter for the paper and a 25-year Citizen-Times veteran, said. "I would have thought he would have been ready to go after the death of Ruth."

The center of the coverage, of course, will be an obituary that currently runs about 1,000 words, Ihne said. But numerous other pieces surround it, including one page devoted to Graham's connection to former presidents.

"We have included all of those who have known or worked with the Graham Association in the past," Ihne said. "Six or seven reporters and two main photographers to pull it together."

Neal, among the leading contributors to the tribute, says it is the largest ever for a local figure in his quarter century at the paper. "We started in about 1999 to have stuff ready, maybe earlier," he reveals. "We have had to redo stories because we have had people die who are in it, needing updates."

Ihne, who spent eight years at the St. Cloud (Minn.) Times prior to the Citizen-Times, said she pushed for a larger tribute after arriving at the paper in 2005.

"Before I ever got here, there was a plan in place. But on my first vacation from here, I took his biography with me and read it a year ago and decided we need to reshape and rewrite and do more," she said. "You also have to keep current with the family because of how the family changes. People get divorced and remarried. Someone has to be aware and know the family well-enough."

Among those who keep up with such changes is current religion reporter Leslie Boyd, who joined the paper in 2001. "I did something on his more familiar quotes, the library they opened this spring," she said. "It is a big section, ready to go. It is massive."