End of an era for Stevensville athletics

Next season, Stevensville High School football and basketball home games will be missing the familiar, yet distinctive, “Voice of the Yellowjackets.” Announcers Jim Pfau and Bill McNulty stepped down last week from a position they have held for decades. Both men are firmly woven into the fabric of the Stevensville community and are stepping out of shoes that will be hard to fill.

Pfau graduated from Stevensville High School in 1968. He returned from serving in Vietnam in 1970 and married his wife Pat in 1973. Jim and his brother owned a feed mill south of Stevensville until retirement. Pat worked at the school for many years. They have two daughters, Christa and Jaime, both of whom attended Stevensville Schools K-12. Jaime is now an elementary teacher there. Jim has grandchildren currently attending Stevensville School.

Bill graduated from Stevensville High School in 1976. He worked offshore in the Louisiana oil fields until 1986, when he returned to Montana and went to school to become a chiropractor. He opened his practice in 1993. Bill’s daughter, Jackie, graduated from Stevensville High School and worked at the Bitterroot Star during her high school years.

One day, Jim attended a basketball game at Stevensville at which the announcer didn’t show up. Ron Nicholas, the principal at the time, asked Jim if he would do it. That was 31 years ago, and he’s been announcing games ever since. He worked alone for a few years, playing music out of a boombox, until Bill showed up with better music equipment, a CD player and CD’s. That was about 27 years ago, and the rest is history.

These two have known each other for most of their lives, are related by marriage, and they are best friends.

“Both of us love sports,” said Jim. “And we both love kids.” Jim said he has had nephews playing at the school and that’s been fun to announce. “When Keith Chambers came in as coach in 1991, I had a nephew playing on the team, “ said Jim. “It was so special.”

“We always tried to raise a little excitement for the kids and the fans,” said Bill. “We promoted the team. We put signs on Main Street advertising the games, and MDT would come and remove them. I would just put them up again.”

They both remember times when the gym would be so full that people would be standing in the lobby trying to hear. Jim became known for botching the pronunciation of people’s names. He said people would just hang on every word, waiting for the mispronunciation. Bill was the jokester, at times verging on inappropriate in his remarks. But these were the things that made their announcing unique and fun, and memorable. They would make up nicknames for the players. They would often announce someone’s birthday, even though it wasn’t the person’s birthday. And they would badger people to donate their winnings from the 50-50 raffle back to the athletic program. “Then there were the times when we thought the microphones were off,” said Bill, without elaborating further. It was all in good fun, and the fans loved it.

They also became known for the music they played during warm-ups and breaks. They liked to pick songs that they knew the crowd would like, “from CCR to Johnny Cash.” There was one special song by Hoyt Axton, but Bill couldn’t remember the name. “This is why we’re getting out of it,” he said with a wink. “We can’t remember anything anymore.”

Keith Chambers, former Stevensville athletic director, teacher and coach, attended this season’s last home game, at which Jim and Bill were recognized for their years of service to the school district. He told some funny stories about the two. He recalled one time when Jim introduced a player from Loyola named Britney Anderson as “Britney Spears” and the fans went wild. Why did Jim make that mistake? Because, in the heat of the moment, Bill fed him that name and Jim said he didn’t even notice the mistake. Of course, that is, until the fans roared, especially the Loyola fans. “The Loyola fans loved it,” said Bill.

“It’s not that we don’t make mistakes every time,” said Jim, “because we do. People are listening for them.”

At some point during their many years of announcing, Jim started doing the “Yellowjacket holler,” a wind up to loudly introducing a player, another unique part of their announcing that fans enjoyed immensely.

Bill said that a cousin of his announces the Butte Central games. ”He came here a few times and sat with us,” said Bill. “Now he sounds just like Jim Pfau.”

Stevensville football and basketball are not the only events that the two have announced for. They have been announcing the annual Creamery Picnic parade for years, taking over from Craig Siphers about 25 years ago. They also can run auctions. “We taught ourselves how to auction,” said Bill. “We’re not very good at auctioneering but we make people laugh, and then they bid.”

Other events they’ve announced or auctioneered at include the Homecoming Parade, Dining on the Diamond, the FFA Alumni fundraiser, motorcycle races, and numerous events for the Main Street Association and American Legion. They announced boxing matches at the Wilma in Missoula for nine years. They will be running the Calcutta for the American Legion’s NCAA Championships auction on March 13th at the High Country Bar. 

Both men are active in their church, where they’ve been serving as ushers for 35-40 years. “We take the collections, hand out the bulletins. If we don’t show up, I’ll get a photo texted to me of an empty seat,” said Bill. 

Perhaps it’s their deep faith that spurs them to help out folks in need in the community, especially young people. Over the years, Jim and his wife have taken in young people who have needed a place to stay. Bill donated a space he has for a church youth group to meet, which they used for 12 years. 

The two friends still plan to do what they can for the community when called upon. “We’ll still be around,” said Jim. “But not doing this (the school events) will give me more time to go to my grandkids’ events.”

“And they’ll find somebody just as good or better,” he added. “And they might think just a little faster.”

Bill said his daughter is getting married this summer and no doubt there will be some grandkids in his future, too.

They both said the best part of their announcing career was developing great relationships with the coaches, the referees, the fans, and especially the kids. “We’re going to miss them,” said Jim. “When we die, at least we’ll know we did something positive,” he added. “It was all worth it. It was all good stuff.”