Molly Ivins with her Great Old Broads for Wilderness t-shirt.

Great Old Broads recently lost a good friend and a very great old

broad. Molly Ivins was taken from us prematurely by breast cancer on Jan. 31, 2007. As with all the battles she fought, this final one she waged with humor and style. We will miss her fun, but pithy, no-holds-barred pleas that we hold the powerful accountable for their lies and illegal actions and to “raise hell…and make the ridiculous look ridiculous” when they fail us, which is regularly.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”

Bless you, Molly. We’ll do our best to hold up our end of the deal. We know you’re with us in spirit as we continue our efforts to achieve honest and equitable management of our wildlands. –Steve Gilbert, Board of Directors of Great Old Broads

Below is an excerpt from Kathleen Parker’s tribute to Molly Ivins.

The thing I loved best about Molly Ivins is that she was a great broad...You don’t hear that word much anymore – “broad.” It went out the door with “lady” and is considered derogatory by younger generations.

But to the World War II crowd, and to some of us who were raised by them, a great broad was more than a mere woman. The best compliment my father could pay a woman was to say, “She is one great broad.”

Those five words were the equiv- alent of a kiss blown across the room, a cape tossed over a puddle, a bow to an intelligence at least equal to one’s own. It did not mean “hot,” as everyone seems to say these days...A great broad might be “hot,”– there’s no rule against it – but that’s the least of her charms. The physical, as Ivins knew as well as anyone, is fleeting.—(c) 2007, The Washington Post Writers Group. Reprinted with Permission.