Fuchs counts down to retirement
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RONAN – Wayne Fuchs is a bit anxious for April 15 to get here already.
“Seventy-seven days and four hours left,” Fuchs joked in an interview last week as he looked at a clock. “I don’t keep up with the seconds yet.”
After a previous career as a radio broadcaster in both Mission Valley and Oklahoma, Fuchs is set to retire 15 years to the day after he took the job as inaugural director of media and marketing at St. Luke Community Hospital in Ronan.
“It just seemed like a good time to quit,” Fuchs said.
The legacy of his career is full of admiration by those who knew him well, and memories of laughter by those who encountered him more casually.
Fuchs never had much of a choice in his first profession. As a self-defined class clown who fronted a rock band in his college years, Fuchs experienced the entertainment industry from a young age.
“I was six years old spinning 78 rpm records for my father when he bought a radio station,” Fuchs said. “That’s all I ever did. It’s what brought me to Montana.”
Fuchs worked in Oklahoma as a radio announcer for a few years before he and his wife Adina were put in the position of possibly owning and operating a station. Fuchs knew his family, which included two sons aged 4 and 8 at the time, would be tied to the station 24/7 if they proceeded with becoming owner/operators. It was something he and Adina didn’t want.
“We loved going to the mountains,” Fuchs said. “At one point I just said we’re moving to the mountains. We almost literally threw a dart at a map, hit Polson, Montana and there was a radio job there … the kids said ‘where?’ We kept driving and driving. They had to wonder if we were going to hit the North Pole or if Montana was still in the United States.”
Fuchs settled into his role as morning announcer for Anderson Broadcasting. He worked with the company for eight years, returned to Oklahoma for a few more years and then permanently moved back to Lake County.
“Montana is home for me,” Fuchs said.
Fuchs fit into town as a broadcaster and also as a person who supported the community by volunteering for events such as Relay for Life, said fellow broadcaster Rich Forbis, who is now sales manager at Anderson Broadcasting.
“He embodied what radio broadcasting should be – giving back to the community,” Forbis said.
The job took its toll, however. Getting up at 4 a.m., only to fall back asleep mid-afternoon, wake up for dinner with family, and fall back asleep before another day’s work was tiring. Fuchs decided it might be time to go in a new direction.
St. Luke Community Hospital CEO Shane Roberts had asked Fuchs, who was on the board of directors for the hospital, to write a job description for director of media and advertising.
“Shane realized that with the changing nature of healthcare that he was going to have to create a position of media relations and marketing,” Fuchs said. “He asked me to write out the job qualifications. That’s one of the jokes we have. I wrote my own job description.”
Once he landed the position, Fuchs set to work doing what he does best: bringing humor and happiness to the people around him.
“I don’t want to work,” Fuchs said. “I want to have fun at what I’m doing, so if I can make work fun, I do.”
Fuchs said his wife teases that he likes to be the center of attention.
“I really don’t,” Fuchs said. “I just like to be able to let other people have fun.”
The jokester got pranked back a few times. Once about eight years ago Fuchs left his bound notebook keeper somewhere in the hospital. He searched and searched and searched for it, before a call finally came in from the nurses’ office that they thought he left something there.
The notebook keeper was found covered in cartoon stickers of characters including Mr. Potato Head from Toy Story that still look in mint condition, though Fuchs has toted his office work around the hospital and to community meetings for several years. A young girl undergoing a procedure at St. Luke’s added the final touch, a My Little Pony sticker.
“People usually look at it and say, ‘You have a granddaughter, don’t you?’” Fuchs said with a laugh.
Then, in 2001, Fuchs was volunteering at the Ronan Visitor’s Center when a photographer for the Missoulian walked in. Fuchs had fallen asleep reading a newspaper and his head was tilted back, mouth open, eyes closed when the photographer took his photo. It ended up on the front of the B section the next day.
“Shane called me into his office asked if I could explain it,” Fuchs remembers with a laugh.
Liane Clairmont, who has worked at St. Luke’s for 30 years, said listed the memory as her favorite one of Fuchs.
“He never lived it down,” Clairmont said. “We got a lot of miles out of it.”
Clairmont said the staff is sad to see Fuchs leave, but has faith his replacement will do good work.
Brooke Roberts has shadowed Fuchs since early January. The former media relations and advertising director for Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson is set to replace Fuchs after he’s gone.
“People keep telling me what big shoes I have to fill,” Roberts said.
Fuchs has no doubt she will rise to the occasion.
“We’re so lucky to have Brooke,” Fuchs said, adding that the young woman has a much better handle on marketing tools of the 21st century than he does. When he began his job, it meant taking photos and hand delivering them to local newspapers. He didn’t have any experience with print media, but he quickly learned how to put the hospital newsletter together. Fuchs doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account. Last year before a planned solo trip to Oklahoma his family made him buy a cell phone for safety purposes, and Fuchs took every back road he could to avoid crowded interstates. Ironically, he didn’t have any cell service on the trip.
Roberts is much more tech-savvy.
“She’s going to do a great job,” Fuchs said.
As the two have toured the hospital together, many people have said how they will miss Fuchs.
“When they say ‘We’re going to miss you,’ it means a lot to me because I hope I’ve had a positive impact on other people,” Fuchs said.
The staff of the hospital always made his job easy.
“I’ve never had to spin anything,” the spokesman said. “I’ve only had to tell the truth.”
In retirement, Fuchs and his wife plan to stay in Mission Valley.
“I’m going to enjoy life and everything that entails, from enjoying nature sitting on my back porch, reading a book, music – I’ve always loved music and it’s been a huge part of my life,” Fuchs said.
He and Adina would like to travel as much as finances allow. The couple enjoys day trips in Montana, but destinations abroad are also possibilities.
“My ultimate trip would be the South Seas, Fiji and New Zealand,” Fuchs said. “Adina says she’d go for that, but she’d rather go for Europe.”
Wherever life takes Fuchs, he has faith everything will work out.
“I’m a firm believer that things work out for the best if you follow where you’re led. You want to call it the force, or the spirit or whatever, if you go where you’re led you can’t go wrong.”
