Havre athletic director deemed best in state

The athletic director at Havre High School was recently named one of the best in the state.

Dennis Murphy was awarded the 2015 Overall Athletic Director of the Year Award Jan. 18 in Kalispell at the Montana Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association meeting.

The board of directors for the association takes on the process of selecting athletic directors for multiple categories every year. The categories are split into sizes of schools and then an overall best director is chosen, which this year was Murphy.

Murphy said that how he was chosen for this award was by doing what he was supposed to and having a great team of co-workers behind him.

"I would say that I was doing my job," Murphy said. "The nice thing about the award is that it comes from my colleagues. They recognized somebody in our field that is doing their job and that, to me, is a nice honor coming from them."

He said a couple of years ago, he won the Class A Athletic Director of the Year Award but has never received this top award from the association.

"The thing about the athletic director position is when you get an award like this, it's because you work with a lot of really good people," he said, adding that the position includes a lot of relying on others for help.

Murphy said he wanted to thank everyone for their help, especially his secretary, Ginger Chagnon.

"She keeps me going in the right direction," he said. "I told her 'the wrong person is probably getting this award.' Credit to her and credit to the administration, because without them, this award wouldn't even exist."

Recipients of the class-based award include Malta High School's Scott King for Class B Athletic Director of the Year. The Class AA director of the year is Mark Dennehy from Glacier High School in Kalispell.