Fire, blizzard devastate area

Editor’s note: This corrects the location of a vehicle-caused grass fire that resulted in the death of an Ohio woman.

The biggest news in this part of north-central Montana this year was fires - huge fires.

One of the first major wildfires in the state was the July Fire that charred 11,699 acres in the Little Rocky Mountains, leading to evacuation orders for the towns of Zortman and Landusky.

Many other fires occurred, including a grass fire north and slightly east of Gildford caused by a vehicle driving off-road that led to the death of an Ohio woman, a 1,500 acre fire north of Joplin that burned on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border and numerous other wildland fires.

The fire that started Aug. 27 in the Bear Paw Mountains brought this part of Montana national attention. In the midst of one of the worst fire seasons in the state and in the nation in more than a decade, the East Fork Fire that burned 21,896 acres was ranked the eighth-highest priority fire in the United States at one point. A top-level federal fire management team came to the area and helped get the fire under control - and an October snowstorm helped finally extinguish it.

Numerous structure fires also occurred in the area, with the year closing out with a major local business - Big Equipment Co., in many ways the successor to the Havre company Big Bud which made the largest tractor in the world - burning to the ground the day before Christmas. Ron Harmon, former owner of Big Bud and the owner of Big Equipment, said Tuesday he already was finding office space and working space to keep the business operating.

The snowstorm Oct. 2-3 did more than just help put out the fire - it put out power, broke trees and caused major damage in the area, getting Havre on the international news cycle, with a Polish news report talking about the storm.

The storm knocked out power from Chester to Malta, with 9,000 NorthWestern Energy customers losing electricity, some for less than a day, others for more than a week.

Cleanup from the storm is still continuing, with the current winter weather now causing more problems.

In politics, Havre received some attention when the youngest lawmaker in the country, Rep. Jacob Bachmeier, D-Havre, was sworn in in January. Bachmeier, who started at age 18, just missed setting state and national records for age. He was able to vote in the primary during the election just by a few months.

Bachmeier participated in - with frequent commentary to local constituents - a fairly contentious legislative session, and then in a special session held to fix a budget deficit.

The Republican-controlled Legislature again defeated bonding to build infrastructure for the state government, and set a budget contrary to what Gov. Steve Bullock requested.

Bullock and Democratic legislators called for revenue increases to make up for declines in areas including energy, while the Republicans stood firm against tax increases, creating mechanisms on how to handle things if revenue declined below their forecast.

When revenue declined below the forecast used by the GOP, those mechanisms kicked in, causing budget cuts. With high expenses in the state due to the fires, the special session was called to bring the budget back into the black.

Republicans blamed Bullock for the "fiscal disaster," while he said the GOP caused the problem with their over-optimistic revenue forecast, saying they should have used the same predictions he used in his budget request.

Local entities reacted to the budget cuts, with schools and public service providers saying they were facing major cuts.

In other governmental news, Havre once again tried to pass a levy to raise funds for maintaining and repairing the aging city streets. The levy, down from $20 million over 15 years that failed to pass two years ago to $15 million over 20 years, once again failed, this time by 101 votes.

The city also started to look into increasing regulation of vacant properties, at the request of Havreite Samantha Clawson, a grant writer for Montana State University-Northern. The city appointed a commission, which includes Clawson, to look into establishing a vacant property registration ordinance that would increase regulation.

The city also, on two tied votes both broken by Mayor Tim Solomon, banned storefront dispensaries for medical marijuana after months of often heavily attended meetings with people speaking on both sides of the issues.

At the Great Northern Fair, after several months of being without a fairgrounds manager the board hired Dave Brewer - voting in an unannounced vote online. The board later publicly voted to hire Brewer, in a meeting where members berated the Havre Daily News for reporting it violated open meeting laws.

The fair went off successfully, and presaged the start of a major construction event - the erecting of a new 4-H Chuckwagon, for which Hill County 4-H had planned and raised funds for several years.

It also had recognition when Bull Riders Canada voted the Cody Four Colors Memorial Bull Ride, held during the Great Northern Fair, Event of the Year.

Another long-awaited construction project started at Montana State University-Northern - its new Diesel Technology Center to house its internationally known program.

A complaint was filed about a student at Northern making racist comments that some Native American students said made them fear for their lives.

Northern faced criticism when the administration determined the student who made the comments was not a danger to others and let him continue studying, though banning him from most of the campus.

The county attorney also faced criticism when, months after assuming office in December 2016, people said she was failing in her duties. One person filed a $1 million lawsuit after a criminal case was dismissed by the judge when Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson said she had lost contact with a whitness, the victim, who also was the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was dismissed and its plaintiff said she was satisfied because the state attorney general's office had taken up the case against the defendant.

Hill County Justice of the Peace Audrey Barger held a hearing on a contempt of court citation for Cole-Hodgkinson not appearing for a trial in her court. Barger did not issue the citation after the hearing.

In a later court appearance, several cases, including an assault with a weapon charge filed against former Montana Speaker of the House of Representatives Bob Bergren, were dismissed because the county attorney's office was not prepared to go to trial.

Havre High School made state headlines several times including for its wrestling team under head coach Scott Filus winning an amazing fifth-straight Class A championship.

Also gaining state and even national attention was Havre basketball player Ryan Bakke when he let a Lewistown player - who suffers from an ailment preventing his body properly processing protein - make his only basket in his high school career. Luke Derthein of Lewistown had not been able to play since his freshman year until his coach let him play in the game where Bakke stood aside to let him shoot in the last seconds.

Havre also was in the spotlight in the area of beauty contests. Tana Johnson of Havre was awarded Mrs. Montana, and in the footsteps of Lauren Scofield, Miss Montana 2016, three Havreites, Alara Vogel, Maddie Tomerup and Hannah Pepprock, were contestants in the Miss Montana pageant. While none were crowned Miss Montana, Pepprock was named third runner up.