Hanging Out With Bill Wassmuth

I rarely see Tony Stewart, Norm Gissel, and Marshall Mend without talking about the early days of the local human rights movement when the late Bill Wassmuth (shown in spring 1997) led the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. The joke back then was that Bill was picked as the chairman of the task force because, as a priest, he was the only one without a wife and kids. Tony and I talked about a trip that the aforementioned four and I made to Noxon High in the late 1980s. The militia movement was in full sway in western Sanders County. And some community leaders wanted to start a task force a la Kootenai County to combat the neo-Nazi influence. We were escorted from the state line to Noxon and back again by sheriff’s deputies. About 300 townspeople jammed the high school gym, including 20 neo-Nazis and KKKers in full uniform who stood side-by-side at the back with arms folded across their chests, glaring. Tony remembers nervously telling Marshall that he made a fine target on the podium with his white shirt. Gallows humor. The racists behaved themselves because the community eagerly accepted the message delivered by Wassmuth, which included his famous signature line, “Saying Yes to Human Rights is the best way to say no to prejudice and bigotry.” Afterward, the gathering broke into discussion groups in classrooms throughout the high school. No violent incident occurred. And I wrote the story by flashlight while hobnobbing with Wassmuth and the other local human rights leaders as we headed for dinner in Sandpoint, in one piece — DFO.

Question: Did you ever meet Bill Wassmuth?