12 Facts About Chet Huntley

Chet Huntley's father was a telegraph operator for the Northern Pacific Railway, and young Chet was born in the Cardwell depot living quarters.

Chet Huntley graduated from Whitehall High School in Whitehall, and attended Montana State College in Bozeman, where he was a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Chet Huntley attended Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle before graduating from the University of Washington in 1934, with a degree in speech and drama.

Chet Huntley began his radio newscast career in 1934 at Seattle's KIRO AM, later working on radio stations in Spokane and Portland.

The program aired for seven years, later changing its name to Chet Huntley Reporting, and often covered racial segregation and civil rights.

Chet Huntley wrote a memoir of his Montana childhood, The Generous Years: Remembrances of a Frontier Boyhood, published by Random House in 1968.

Chet Huntley maintained his own cattle farm in Stockton, New Jersey, which for a short time in 1964 included a beef line from the farm's cattle promoted under his name before the network intervened due to conflict of interest and promotional concerns.

Chet Huntley returned to Montana, where he conceived and built Big Sky, a ski resort south of Bozeman, which opened in December 1973.

Chet Huntley died of lung cancer on March 20,1974, at his home in Big Sky at the age of 62, three days before the opening ceremonies for Big Sky.

Chet Huntley was honored with a cenotaph at Soldiers Chapel on the grounds of the Big Sky Resort.

Chet Huntley was buried at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman, Montana, 50 miles east of his hometown of Cardwell, Montana.

In 1988, Chet Huntley was posthumously inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.