'Voice of the Bulldogs' bled green and gold

To all who knew him, Randy Dawdy was

“the voice of the Bulldogs.” As the announcer for Whitefish High

School sports for 30 years, his reputation was well earned. Yet,

it’s likely he’ll be remembered more for his devotion to Whitefish

youth than his smooth articulation.

Dawdy died Tuesday, Dec. 28, after

battling diabetes for a number of years. He was 53 years old.

“There was no one in the community who

helped kids more than Randy did — and the kids loved him,” former

Whitefish basketball coach Julio Delgado said. “He was involved not

just in their sports but in their life, too. He generally cared and

considered each of them lifetime friends.”

Dawdy started announcing games in 1973

before he even graduated from Whitefish High School. Along with

announcing the starting lineups, he provided play-by-play coverage

at all the games. He kept at it until diabetes starting affecting

his eyesight.

“He did it up until a couple of years

ago,” said Alan Dias, a co-worker of Dawdy’s at the high school.

“Before he retired, we got him a spotter — someone to read the

names and numbers on the roster to him. He did it until he

absolutely couldn’t do it anymore.”

Dawdy was a custodian at the high

school for about 20 years, and his duties included the gym, which

lent to his love for Bulldog sports.

“He was real close to all of the teams,

being around the locker rooms so much,” Dias said. “Randy didn’t

have any kids of his own, but these sports teams were like his

kids.”

Friend Mark Van Nyhuis said Dawdy was

one of the good guys who was always supporting the community that

was “like his family.”

“Like most of Whitefish is, he was

someone who would do whatever he could, and be in the background,”

Van Nyhuis said.

It was his voice, though, that got him

inducted into the Whitefish High School hall of fame in 2005.

Delgado compared his announcing style to that of Michael Buffer,

who is famous for starting boxing matches with, “Let’s get ready to

rumble.”

“Randy had a signature voice,” Delgado

said. “We used to take bets to see if he would run out of air

before he got to announcing my name during the starting

lineups.”

Beyond high school sports, Dias

described Dawdy as a man with a gigantic heart and a good sense of

humor who knew nearly everyone in town.

“He’d be sitting in Buffalo Café and

somebody would walk in and he could tell you the entire history of

that person,” Dias said. “He never sat alone because he knew

everybody in the room. He loved to visit. That was his favorite

thing to do.”

“He bled green and gold,” Delgado said.

“He will be sorely missed and is the kind of person who can’t be

replaced.”