Bob Butz was an easy guy to get along with, unless you didn’t pay attention to your grammar.
Butz, 79, a longtime Denver radio and TV personality who died July 5 at a care center in Thornton, was a stickler on all things spoken and written.
And he was glad to point out errors to his colleagues, or even his pastor.
Butz’s wife, Jeanne Butz, recalls that her husband took their Episcopal priest aside after church one day and told him the word is “because,” not “becuz.”
Butz read through his kids’ papers for errors, said his son, John Butz of Corona, Calif., and was a constant critic of on-air journalists who mispronounced words. “That was his biggest aggravation,” his wife said.
Butz kept up on local news and politics and trained younger colleagues about interviewing.
“I learned more about journalism in the first six months (of working for Butz) than I did in four years of college,” said Bob White, former general manager of Channel 7.
Friends and family said Butz was so serious and professional at his job that it was nearly impossible to distract him while he was on the air.
It’s a common game among radio and television people to try to “break up” a colleague with off-stage antics while the person is on-air.
One time, while Butz was on the radio, a friend came up behind him with an aerosol can of shaving cream and proceeded to make swirls of foam all over the top of Butz’s head.
Butz never budged and never missed a beat.
On those occasions when Butz nearly broke up, he was able to cover it by pretending to cough, said former colleague Fred Hobbs.
Butz was known for his baritone voice. “It was strong. He was easy to understand and his articulation was first rate,” said Merwin Smith, another former colleague at Channel 7.
And he was practically “blooperless,” Smith said.
After retiring from television in 1976, Butz worked for Talking Books, narrating more than 250 books and scores of magazines.
He was named narrator of the year in 1995 and was inducted into the Broadcast Pioneers of Colorado Hall of Fame.
Robert Butz was born Sept. 4, 1926, in Trinidad and went to high school there. While in high school he worked at the local radio station, KCRT.
He considered a career in engineering but changed that after a professor told him he had a great radio voice.
He earned a journalism degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and helped with expenses by working at radio station KBOL.
He took the name “Cowboy Boots” because of how he pronounced his name, not because he had any cowboy connections.
Butz “often scooped the Boulder Camera,” Hobbs said. “He was really the first radio newsman in Boulder.”
After serving in the Army, Butz got a job at KLZ radio and later appeared on KLZ Channel 7 news, becoming one of Colorado’s first television anchors.
He did the midday and weekend evening news on Channel 7 for 20 years. After the station was sold, he went back to KLZ radio for four more years.
While at KLZ television, Butz was one of the first news people on the scene when a United Airlines plane crashed near Longmont in 1955, killing all 44 on board. John Gilbert Graham, who was convicted and executed for the crime, had planted a bomb on the plane in order to cash in on a $37,500 life-insurance policy he had bought for his mother, Daisie E. King, a passenger.
In 1952, Butz married Barbara Gruen and they had two sons. They later divorced. He married Jeanne Hoselton in 1972.
In addition to her and his son, he is survived by another son, Tom Butz of Edwards; stepson Richard Caudel of Eagle; and four grandchildren.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at 303-820-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com.
