When a person such as Bill Holm dies, there are plenty of stories to be shared. Holm, 65, the well-known writer and musician, died Wednesday at a hospital in Sioux Falls, S.D., from complications with pneumonia. He won the 2008 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. Consider that award sort of like winning the World Series. He spoke at countless gatherings and likely played piano there, too. He taught at Southwest Minnesota State University for 27 years until he retired in December.

Here's just some of what has been said of Holm before and after his death.

Holm was an occasional guest on A Prairie Home Companion radio show on American Public Media. The program's host, Garrison Keillor, called Holm a great man.

"And unlike most great men, he really looked like one. Six foot 8 inches, big frame, and a big white beard and a shock of white hair, a booming voice, so he loomed over you like a prophet and a preacher, which is what he was," said Keillor.

"I wish I'd been there to catch him as he fell," Keillor continued. "I hope his Icelandic ancestors are waiting to welcome him to their rocky corner of heaven. I hope his piano goes to someone who will love it as much as he did. I hope that people all across Minnesota will pick up one of his books and see what the man had to say."

Holm was praised by major poets after he won the McKnight award. In a commemorative book that was published to mark the occasion, authors wrote essays in tribute to Holm.

"Bill is one of our country's few essential contemporary writers," wrote Ted Kooser, the U.S. poet laureate from 2004-06. "What he has had to say to American readers has, it seems to me, a quality of insight and intelligence right up there with, say, Thomas Paine or Henry David Thoreau.

"If he has ever written something that doesn't matter, I haven't come upon it."

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Bly, another rural Minnesota native, wrote: "For Bill it's clear that to be sane in his world means that you pay attention to what you love."

Bly also wrote that Holm wasn't afraid to have an opinion: "If you can't hug or marry an opinion, what's the sense of it? He's been known to talk for three hours to a book salesman who happened to knock on his door. In one case, at least, the man went back to college the next day."

#Those are some impressive folks saying very heartfelt words about Holm.

But what about the students he taught, his readers?

We quoted some of those folks in our story in Friday's paper. We knew on Thursday Holm's death would touch many people. Holm's publisher Milkweed Editions posted a memorial encouraging comments on its Web site.

Students, fans and friends exchanged stories through e-mail, and Facebook accounts on the Internet.

Folks also talked in person of Holm.

Students talked of a teacher who cared about them.

Back in the days when smoking was allowed or not, on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University, Holm had the smoky office.

A former student said her heart was broken Thursday.

"The most important voice in our region," a fan wrote in a comments section on the Independent's Web site.

Why would people be so saddened, so stunned and feel such heartfelt loss at this writer? Why do some consider him to be such an important voice for this region and Minnesota and such an important voice in literature?

Here's just a little of why.

Holm poked and chided us out of our comfort zone. He demanded to know why we weren't angry at injustice. He asked us why we didn't appreciate more an open prairie, a good book and the company of friends.

If we were his students he'd want us to be better writers, better readers. To speak from what was inside our hearts and minds.

He wanted to know why more of us didn't appreciate great literature or wonderful music and what we were so afraid of.

And because he was also the guy who lived down the street from us.

Despite our attempts to conceal who we are, he saw us. And he liked us anyway.