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The Montana Standard made a big mistake one Monday in March of 2012. Big. Huge.

That was the day that the brass at the paper’s parent company, Lee Enterprises, decided to lay off sports editor Bruce Sayler for the unforgivable crime of turning 60 years old.

Bruce had put in more than three decades with the paper. Most of that time was spent writing about local sports. Much of it was spent making sure that all the athletes and teams in the area were covered.

That last part was a stressful job that Bruce excelled in.

If Lee Enterprises, which was run largely by spineless people who had the same job their parents used to have back in those days, did not make that huge blunder, I would probably still be working on the sports desk at the Standard.

After they got rid of Bruce, using the guise of “eliminating the position” of sports editor, I left the paper. So did sportswriters Pat Ryan and Sean Eamon. The sports staff has never been the same since — not in quantity of writers or quality of coverage.

Bruce, though, bounced back. He joined me at ButteSports.com, which was started by Ron and Shelly Davis in the wake of the Standard’s gaffe, and Bruce continued to write about local sports. In fact, since he was freed from the duties of assigning coverage, he has done some of his best work on that website.

Late last month, Bruce completed his 53^rd school year covering sports in Montana.

I am also in a better position. After 10 years at Butte Sports, where Bruce and I crushed the Standard when it came to breaking news and covering events, I am doing my own thing and having a blast.

That initial shock of that week, though, hurt us all. It shocked the community that a company could be so out of touch with its product that it cut ties with its most valuable employee.

Bruce was loyal to a fault. He could have easily moved on to bigger jobs covering bigger teams, but he loved Butte and he liked the paper he worked for.

That is why seeing KBZK/KXLF TV lay off Chief Meteorologist Mike Heard last week is so disturbing. Without knowing the exact details, it sure seems like the news station is doing the same thing to Mike that Lee Enterprises did to Bruce.

KBZK and KXLF are CBS affiliate stations under the Montan News Network.

Mike had been a fixture on our televisions in Butte since he joined the KXLF newscast as a fresh-faced boy with a full head of hair in 1988.

From Day 1, everybody loved watching Mike Heard give the weather. He had a great camera presence from the start. There has always just been a comfort about watching Mike on television. It is impossible to dislike him.

More importantly, Mike is good at what he does. Really good. His forecasts were always accurate and very easy to understand. When you watched the KXLF or KBZK news, you knew exactly what to expect in the coming days, and you could plan accordingly.

He even gave us advance warning of that crazy wind storm that tumbled decades-old evergreen trees and sent trampolines flying last Dec. 17. People who get their weather from an app on their phone were caught off guard.

Mike could have easily moved up to a bigger market over the years. He loves Southwest Montana, however. He has roots here, and he was loyal to the employer that gave him a chance just two years out of high school.

Weather has long been the ratings driver for local newscasts, but Mike’s impact was bigger than that. The old ladies loved to watch him. My dad always swore by his forecasts. I watched every night, and he even had me, at times, worrying about the drought conditions of Southwestern Montana.

People who watch Mike are not the ones on Facebook complaining about sprinkling restrictions.

When Mike started, he shared the desk with stars like Viola Vigil and Joe Wren. He worked with anchors like Cindy Purdue-Dolan, Jay Kohn and Chet Layman.

The Montana News Network, which is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, saw so many great reporters and sports reporters come and go. Dom Tibbetts is now covering the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. Lisa (Gangel) Kerney used KXLF as a springboard for a career that eventually saw her anchor SportsCenter on ESPN.

But nobody was ever more beloved than Mike, a hometown boy who graduated from Butte Central in 1986. Nobody was a bigger ratings getter. Nobody was more famous in our neck of the woods. Nobody was must-see TV like Mike.

Nobody outworked Mike, either. I saw that firsthand when Matt Vincent and I went on Monday night sportscasts with Dan Toth to talk football during the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Our segments were recorded early in the day. While we were anything but serious as we took over the KXLF studio, Mike almost always had his head in his work. He was not going to just read us a canned weather report on the news that night. He lived the weather.

He was also way nicer than he had to be to a couple of goofballs invading his work space every Monday afternoon. He was friendly and courteous, and he always laughed at our silly jokes.

So, what could make KBZK/KXLF lay off such an accurate and beloved meteorologist? Could it be that he was costing them too much as he works his way toward his 60^th birthday?

He has never been anything short of professional on the telecasts, and he has never done anything on his personal time to embarrass the station. He is that same likable guy off camera.

Like with Bruce, his dismissal makes no sense, even if it will likely save the company some money in the short term.

Of course, that explanation seems really silly since we know the Montana News Network made an ungodly amount of money off the Tester-Sheehy Senate race in 2024. It will stand to make a killing, this year, too, as the dark money pours in to try to buy yet another election.

In the long term, this is going to cost KBZK/KXLF bigtime in terms of credibility and viewership. They are going to suffer in the ratings like never before. They are going to see their loyal viewers leave in droves.

That will eventually cost them money.

Some will quit watching because they will want to boycott a company that would do a good guy dirty like that. Even more will leave because the newscast will not be as good without Mike, who lost that full head of hair but still very much has a fresh face when it comes to his passion to tell us about the forecast and the impact of the weather.

Like with Bruce, though, I do not fear for Mike, who told his audience on the Monday of his last week that he was not retiring. A guy that good and that likeable will land on his feet.

The bosses at the local affiliates of ABC, NBC and FOX would be crazy to not start a bidding war to bring Mike to their networks. The hiring of the most beloved weatherman this area has ever seen would mean they would crush KBZK/KXLF in the ratings.

Viewers would come to them in droves.

Or, maybe Mike will go do his own thing on the internet, where the possibilities for a talent like him are endless.

Whatever he does, we know last Friday night was not the last time will we see Mike Heard give us an accurate weather forecast. He will be back, and he will show the folks at KBZK/KXLF just how big of a mistake they made.

It was big. Huge.

— Bill Foley, who has apparently watched Pretty Woman too many times, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.