Archives West Finding Aid

Myron Stanford "Stan" Lynde was born in Billings on September 23, 1931 to Myron and Eleanor Lynde. He was raised on his father's sheep ranch near Lodge Grass, and attended school there while helping out with day-to-day ranch operations. He attended the University of Montana, where he majored in journalism with a minor in art. Mr. Lynde left the university in 1951, however, enlisting in the Navy during the Korean War and serving on Guam for a time and later on a submarine based out of San Diego, California. He created and published the comic strip "Ty Phoon" for the Navy paper.

In 1958, his most popular comic strip, Rick O'Shay, was picked up by the Chicago Tribune; for the next twenty years he wrote and illustrated the comic for the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. In 1978, Mr. Lynde created a second strip, Latigo, which he illustrated from his home in Red Lodge until 1983. The following year, Mr. Lynde self-syndicated the cartoon series "Grass Roots."

After his retirement from cartooning in the mid-1980s, Mr. Lynde penned several novels, including those in the Merlin Fanshaw series, and a historical novel entitled "Vigilante Moon." Mr. Lynde co-founded and co-organized the "Great Montana Centennial Cattle Drive," and was a recipient of the "Inkpot" Award for achievement in the comic arts, and the Montana Governor's Award for the Arts. He married his wife, Lynda Brown, in 1989. Mr. Lynde passed away August 6th, 2013.