Cowboy Les has done it all

At one period of time in the mid-1990s, Billy Ray Cyrus of Achy-Achy Break fame was the greatest thing since ol' Swivel Hips' -- Elvis Presley -- setting female hearts a-flutterin' and men wishing they were BRC.
Today, Cyrus can be seen as the compassionate 'Doc' on the PAX network, and the hysteria surrounding the one-time phenomen from Flatwoods, Kentucky has certainly died down somewhat, but there was a man who must be credited for "discovering" Cyrus and, actually, bringing him to world spotlight.
In 1992, Les Pyette of the Toronto Sun, a solid newspaperman with a penchant for taking chances, called in almost novice reporter Joe Warmington and shipped him and photographer Ken Kerr to Huntingdon, West Virginia to check out the country singer, as Jane Sonmor relates in 'The Little Paper That Grew.'
"Nobody had heard of the guy," wrote Sonmor. "Les had only heard his name once and made inquiries. Now he was investing the company's scarce cash in a bird dog operation that could end nowhere."
Pyette held his breath.
"I knew Warmington was skeptical and that they were laughin' in the newsroom and sayin', 'Les thinks Elvis is still alive. To tell you the truth I held my breath a little."
Sonmor wrote that Warmington didn't stay a skeptic long. "The atmosphere was steamy in the smalltown club where Billy Ray was doing "Achy-Breaky Heart" Joe was on the phone before the concert was over. He wanted Les to hear the screaming. And so the Sun was the first to jump on the Billy Ray bandwagon and in the summer of '92, as the country singer became the hottest act in North America, he repaid the Sun's faith by playing the occasional concert decked out in a Toronto Sun T-shirt. Les's grin was a little fuller than usual."
In 1994, Warmington and Kaye Corbett's teeny-weeny Royal Paperbacks of Toronto teamed up to give the world 'The Cyrus Virus' -- relating the Billy Ray Cyrus Story: From Flatwoods, Kentucky to Super Stardom. And while the general public clamored for anything related to BRC, Warmington was more than grateful in his praise of Pyette.
This is what he wrote in 'The Cyrus Virus' precede: 'Les Pyette, the amazing Corporate Editor of the Toronto Sun for first hiring me from Northern Ontario and then deciding that Billy Ray would become a phenomenon the Sun would want to document."
Last weekend, Pyette, now known forever as Cowboy Les after his stint as publisher of the Calgary Sun, was on the phone from Cowtown (I can say that since Calgary is my hometown) amid the 25th anniversary party for the newspaper and while trying to catch a baseball game on TV, he imparted wisdom on life, Conrad Black and his hard-nosed approach to Journalism 101.
Pyette, who will be 60 on May 31, the same birthday he shares with Joe Namath, Clint Eastwood and one of his mothers-in-law, swept into the Toronto Sun at age 29 and the complacent attitude of Canadian reporting has never been the same since.
Of course, Pyette has a philosophy that he imparts to all and it is: "I always tell young reporters when they come to a new city, to grab it by the throat, shake it and make it work for you. Be very aggressive. Make the cops know who you are. Make the medical people know who you are and the entertainment community. Get the best tickets right off the bat. Tell them you're a somebody, even if you're not that somebody yet. I followed those precepts when I first came to Toronto and when I went to Calgary, I just about owned the city. If you don't you'll get swallowed up and left behind."
That's the type of journalistic philosophy he has given out in his stints as publisher of the Calgary Sun, the London Free Press and, finally, the Toronto Sun, from which he retired when he was 57.
Of his then 42 years in the newspaper game, 29 had spent with the Sun Media. So retirement seemed plausible.
"Financially and professionally I wanted to go out on top," said the father of six girls and two boys.
It ssemed to be a great idea to spend time with his parents and relatives on Manitoulin Island on Georgian Bay, rather than the often-vicious infighting and achy-breaky heartbreaks associated with big-league publishing.
He and couple of other newshounds, including veteran Toronto newspaperman, Brian Vallee, formed a small publishing company, Westend Publishers. It would keep his hand in the business.
But Pyette became bored.
"You know there's a 50-50 chance when you retire, that you'll either stay retired or you'll be anxious to get back into something as a related field."
After six months of retirement, he thought, "maybe, I left too soon." Pyette realized that 18 months had to go by, according to the Toronto Sun agreement, before he could move forward in the newspaper business again.
On August 6, 2004, CanWest flew him to Winnipeg for discussions and by December 6, 2004, he once more was back in the swing of big-league newspapering. although he admitted, "I was rusty."
So if you pick up a copy of today's National Post and look way up to the top and in the masthead on Page A16, there's the chairman's name, David Asper and right alongside it reads: LES PYETTE -- PUBLISHER.
(Ed. Note: Since writing the above, Pyette has left the National Post)