Dragu wins national award for investigative series

Havre Daily News reporter Paul Dragu won a first prize for investigative reporting from the Inland Press Association for his series on Sunrise Financial buying properties in Havre.

Dragu, who started his first job as a newspaper reporter when he came to work for the Havre Daily last November, said it is "fantastic" to win the award.

"I'm ecstatic, less than a year into my journalism career," he said.

Havre Daily News publisher Stacy Mantle said Dragu's award is a tribute to his hard work and writing.

"Paul dives into any story we assign him and always delivers," Mantle said.

Inland Press Association is an organization of more than 1,000 newspapers in the United States, Canada and Bermuda. Dragu's story was rated against other investigative reporting submissions from other newspapers in the fewer than 10,000 subscribers.

The story investigated Sunrise Financial buying numerous tax liens in Havre as well as in other towns around the state. In Havre, the properties generally sit vacant after Sunrise takes possession, with the company showing little interest in selling them to interested buyers or fixing up the property.

Dragu said that the story seemed of great importance and interest to the community.

"It's crucial," he said. "With the blight and all that going on and the shortage of properties and rental places."

The company declined to respond to multiple requests Dragu made for comment, including when he went to its offices in Great Falls. That raised more questions, he added.

"It seems fishy of them to do this," Dragu said. "It doesn't seem in their best interest not to comment."

He said he is continuing to watch the company's activity in Havre and expects to write followup stories.

Dragu said investigating the story was interesting in many ways. Along with the subject matter, he had to learn how tax liens and property ownership works and learn about city regulations and ordinances.

"It was one of those things that never left you," he said. "You took the work home but it was good taking the work home.

" ... It's kind of like playing detective without the danger of being a detective," he added.

Dragu wrote for five years out of Atlanta on the blog sites Redstate.com and Patch.com before coming to Havre, as well as publishing last fall "Defector: A true story of tyranny, liberty and purpose," an autobiography on which he collaborated with Mark Hobafcovich. The book tells the story of Hobafcovich defecting from Romania and, once coming to the United States, becoming a pastor and missionary.

Dragu himself immigrated to the United States from Romania with his family when he was 8, living in Atlanta until moving to Montana to begin writing for the Havre Daily News.