A year ago I wrote: “Urban and affluent newcomers to our region bring an utterly different value system for the land. To them, commodity extraction is inferior to the amenity value of land -- scenery, recreation, open space, fish and wildlife, wilderness. Rather than the ‘boomers’ decried by [Wallace] Stegner, we now attract landscape architects specializing in conservation development. (Happy birthday, Scott!)”

My friend Scott Doss died in early March, just shy of his 51st birthday. He lived a clean and healthy life: exercise, careful diet, no vices, cheerful and optimistic personality. Lightning strikes. Prostrate cancer got him. Real fast. Most old men die having it but that’s not what kills them. Scott’s case was an anomaly.

I knew Scott well -- as a landscape architect, serious cyclist, writer, and friend. Although Scott and his wife Sue lived in Bozeman for only five years, perhaps 200 friends and admirers gathered at the Emerson last Wednesday to celebrate his life and mourn his passing. Everyone who spoke commented on Scott’s integrity, enthusiasm, and love of life. Scott was a missionary for quality in our social and natural environment. I’ll miss him greatly.

This Emerson gathering was a tribute to his character, charm, and competence. I felt honored when Sue asked me to initiate and host testimonies.

Scott and I grew up nearly within sight of one another, I on a farm, Scott in a town nearby. We never met, for I left for college when Scott was training-wheel age. There are lessons in the story of how we became friends in Bozeman.

Scott was a landscape architect specializing in rural areas. He worked for over two years on a conservation development plan for our ranch. He completed it just before his death. We cherish this accomplishment. The substantial open space in his design, more than 96 percent of the acreage, will yield extremely long-term benefits for both wildlife and human communities.

Scott’s qualities included great talent and appropriate ambition, both guided by good intentions. He had an excellent sense of how the world actually works. Folks of this quality seek venues in which to exercise their visions. Gallatin County provided it.

He was a highly creative landscape architect. He recognized the relentless forces pushing development on our lands. I believe he found it ethically and intellectually irresponsible to pretend this pressure away, to dismiss or ignore it. But Scott was among the few who dealt with it responsibly. His work in Montana demonstrates how normally disruptive demands can be handled constructively.

Scott was on the board of Gallatin Writers. He helped me with some of my columns and contributed an occasional piece to our regular series. Scott’s Bozeman Daily Chronicle column in ’03 is one of my favorites. He wrote:

“In these ‘best of the West’ locales, culture and education sit comfortably in a setting of incomparable natural beauty. Increasingly, individuals and families learn of such places and make the decision to come. By that simple decision, they unintentionally join in the potential demise of the life that they seek.”

Note the final clause in that paragraph: new arrivals “unintentionally join in the potential demise of the life that they seek.” Scott continues: “We should recognize that economics is a prime mover in the creation of landscapes and land uses. We can influence but not suspend this fact.” And then Scott called attention to something new in our region:

“Now consider this ... innovation: most new subdivision residents pay to preserve and maintain significant tracts of open space within their communities. This is accomplished through higher lot prices and association dues. The extra dollars buy and maintain sometimes hundreds of acres of open lands within a development.” Scott demonstrated environmental stewardship when his projects preserved these “hundreds of acres.” They enrich the lives of humans, animals, and the community and are his everlasting legacy.

Scott recognized quality, identified threats to it, and then designed ameliorations. It’s the best we can do when no perfect solution exists.

Bozeman, of course teems with funhogs, folks who rarely miss a hatch, 10 inches of fresh powder, or the chance to ride on a sunny morning. Scott, however, lived a much fuller, more socially responsible life. The entire community will suffer his loss.