This is a story about stories. Bill White learned their power early. As a boy, White accompanied a favored uncle who spun yarns in a rural Wisconsin barbershop. Men gathered nightly to listen. There was status in holding an audience, and his uncle had them rapt.
“It was a delightful and enchanting experience,” White noted later. He went home to Viroqua, the bedroom he shared with a younger brother, and began telling tales of his own. White knew he’d succeeded when his brother began trying to script the endings, pleading for a happy close to a made-up story of adventure. “Don’t let him die, Bill!”
Stories remained important after White became a Lutheran minister. He used them in sermons. Jesus, White said, was a storyteller. Prior to his 2011 retirement, White served 20 years as senior pastor at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison. His sermons were broadcast on six television stations and collected in books.