New reporter Derek Hann joins Havre Daily News staff

Derek Hann's experiences have led him from the East Coast to Missoula and then to Montana State University-Northern in Havre, and now to the Havre Daily News.

Hann started as a full-time news reporter at the Havre Daily Tuesday.

Hann said he has a great interest in writing stories about this area.

"Havre is a really interesting place and I want to meet people and talk to people and hear their stories," he said. "No matter who you are, you have a point of view and a right to be heard.

"Plus, I love writing," he added.

He said he was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1996 and in 2014 graduated from George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, Virginia, where he also worked on the school newspaper for a year.

He said his grandfather died the day of his graduation and he decided he "wanted to travel in weird ways," so he spent some time hitchhiking up and down the East Coast and working construction jobs - and meeting some very interesting people.

"I met some of the nicest people I ever met in the smallest, dinkiest little towns," he said.

Then he went to Missoula, where the rest of family - his mother's family is from Missoula - had moved.

Hann said he came to Havre to enroll in a two-year welding program at Montana State University-Northern - he had been welding since he was 14, and said one of the interesting people he met was a welding artist in Florida - and it was there that he met and fell in love with his wife, Jessica. When she became pregnant with their daughter, Jennavieve Viola, now 5 months, he decided he needed to quit his studies to start working. He worked for local contractor Clausen and Sons, then went on a tour for his first writing success, his book of poetry, "The Blessings of Life."

He received the first copies of his book, published by Local Gems Poetry in Rhode Island, last month.

"It's a little bit of classical-written poetry, a little bit more modern beat poetry," he said. " ... The whole idea of the poetry book was, what is good and bad in life, whatever you experience, brings you where you are."

Hann said he did book-signing tours in Missoula and Great Falls and hopes to do more tours later. He also is working on a novel, he said.