Bud Bultman rules the world; 'Motorboat' Barwick

By GRAHAM OSTEEN
Editor-At-Large
graham@theitem.com

The "Sumter is the Center of the Universe" award this week goes to Sumter's Bud Bultman, managing editor of CNN Productions, the documentary unit of CNN.

According to Ivy Moore's story in Thursday's Item, Bud recently received the President's Award for the network's longstanding commitment to long form documentaries, adding to an already long list including an Edmund R. Murrow award, two National Headliner and two previous Emmy awards.

In other words, he's the man – the big dog, the big cheese, the big enchilada, etc. – and he got his start right here in the smoke-filled newsroom of The Sumter Daily Item almost 30 years ago, when bell bottoms and wide ties ruled the earth and every desk had a full ashtray.

Bud grew up on Tucson Drive under the tutelage of the legendary Deuward and his blushing bride, Helen, who is not afraid to express her journalistic opinions, and with siblings Kathy Ardis, Tommy, Elizabeth Bultman and Susan McGee.

I don't know of anyone from Sumter who has reached such a high level of professional achievement in one of the most vital, competitive and influential parts of the journalistic world. Search his name on Google and you will get just a sense of his incredible body of work.

Bud is a brilliant man that I am proud to know, and it is rumored that he has renounced any association with the Tucson Tigers in the name of common sense and journalistic independence.



The following e-mail arrived Sept. 30, 2009, from Sumter native John Everett of Amelia Island, Florida. Read it carefully, because it's an instant classic:

I was reading The Item's web site this morning, as I do on most days (always the obits), and happened across your Aug. 31, 2008, piece on the Elks Club pool debate.

Perhaps I can add a little info.

I was one of the lifeguards during Buddy Gulledge's tenure as manager, and succeeded Buddy in that position in the summers of 1958 and 1959. There are several things that stand out in my memory. First was my interview for the manager's job with Norman Chandler, who ran the Elks Club, a mysterious and forbidden place to us teens. We could only speculate as to what pagan rites and sins took place within its walls. Mr. Chandler was a large and imposing individual, and his office looked to me to be the perfect setting for where Poe may have written "The Raven." I was so nervous I almost threw up.

However, I got the job, and Mr. Chandler, I soon learned, was a very nice man and a hands-off boss. I had limited contact with him thereafter, so I always assumed he was pleased with my management. Then there was Doc Dunlap, who oversaw the pool equipment and grounds. Doc kept a pace about three times that of a normal man. Rail thin and moving like a fast-forwarded movie, I can still picture him emerging from the pool equipment house, flaying his arms about, and coughing and hacking from a chlorine leak that needed his regular attention.We always looked forward to Mac McInnis's visits to the pool. We were in awe of Mac. Although I was a pretty good swimmer, my diving ability peaked out jumping, feet first, off the high board. In all the intervening years, watching college and Olympic diving, I don't believe I have ever seen Mac's equal. He could do every twist and turn known to man, and barely leave a ripple entering the water.I do not recall Steve Barwick, unless he was that little kid who resembled a motorboat in the pool. And I am certain I was not the "mean SOB," a title he, apparently mistakenly, assigns to Buddy Gulledge for the 1958 summer.

I do remember Buddy.

He was Sumter's "Fonz" in the 1950s. We all envied Buddy and his prowess with the girls.

We studied his technique and frequently asked his advice, alas to no avail. Some techniques cannot be taught. One of the other lifeguards, who was in a perpetual state of breaking up and making up with his girl, would have eaten earthworms if Buddy had told him that was part of the "secret."

On rainy days, with just Buddy, the lifeguards and a couple of stragglers around, Buddy would sit up on the concession counter and, like Tim Meadows' "Saturday Night Live" creation, Leon Phelps, "The Ladies Man" – with a bottle of Scotch rather than Courvoisier – hold forth on the art of lovemaking. Those were wonderful summers.By the way, I was a very close pal with your dad back in those days. Your grandfather took Hubert and me to my first college basketball game at Carolina when we were 12 or 13. Please give him my best.

Among the many great bits of writing in this piece from Mr. Everett, I think the description of Mr. Chandler as a "hands-off boss" is my favorite. Everybody wants one of those.

And I just can't shake the image of Mr. Gulledge dispensing love advice, Judge McInnis flying through the air, and Doc Dunlap running around the pool coughing. Maybe Bud Bultman will come do a documentary on it.

I also like this observation: "I do not recall Steve Barwick, unless he was that little kid who resembled a motorboat in the pool."

Believe me when I say that Uncle Bobby "Coach" Baker will like it also, because "Motorboat Barwick" has such a nice ring that it will be impossible for Barwick's buddies at the YMCA to resist. It's one of those unexpectedly surprising Sumter nicknames that just works, like Skeet, Foots or Buck James, Hick Harvin, Dark Meat Bessinger, Ya-Ya Segars, Kid Kinney, Cotton Williams, Mo Curtis, Bucko Edens, Sambo Hunter, Sweet Pea Harvin, Killer Graham, Noodly Propst, Donbo Goodson, Dilbert Bryan, Franko Edwards, Cool Carl Gulledge, Bubbas of all sorts and plenty of Juniors.

Please feel free to submit your own favorite Sumter nicknames, OK Motorboat?

Graham Osteen is co-president of Osteen Publishing Co. and Editor-At-Large of The Item. Contact him at The Item, 20 North Magnolia St., Sumter, S.C., 29150; graham@theitem.com, or call 803-774-1352.