Professional players again coming to Havre in Legends for Lights

The Northern Lights Athletic and Scholarship Foundation will be hosting its Legends for Lights Pheasant Jamboree for the 19th consecutive year starting Thursday.

The four-day event will include hunting, food and the community having a chance to meet more than 20 National Football League and National Hockey League legends.

"It's bound to be a weekend to remember," the event's Facebook page says.

This year, the event has a number of local, state and national legends attending, she said. The NFL legends who will be at the event include local players Mike Tilleman, a Chinook High School graduate, and Marc Mariani, who graduated from Havre High School, as well as Ron Acks, Jeff Backus, Billy Rae Barnes, Nick Bebout, Elmer Collett, Mike Donohoe, Sandy Durko, Casey Fitzsimmons, Dale Hackbart, Gus Hollomon, Russ Jensen, Ken Jolly, Kent Kramer, Kyle Kramer, Art Kuehn, George Kunz, Chuck Logan, Dylan McFarland, Jim Miller, Bob Stein, Thatcher Szalay and Lonnie Warwick. She added that, this year, two NHL legends, Barry Dean and Geoff Sanderson, will also be at the event, .

Montana State University-Northern Athletic Administrative Associate Bobbie Morse said the event will include a number of community events including dinners, an autograph session and a trap shoot. 

She said that the autograph session will be at the Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line Friday from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.

She added that the public can also purchase either an all-access four-day pass for $150 or a daily pass for $50 for the nightly dinners and events at the Hill County 4-H Chuckwagon at the Great Northern Fairgrounds.

The trap shoot is also open to the public, she said. The event costs $40 and people will have the opportunity to be on a team with or compete with different legends. She added that even if a person is not in the pheasant hunt they can still participate in the trap shoot.

"That's kind of fun," Morse said.

Morse said that the Legends for Lights event is the foundation's second-biggest event of the year and a wide range of people come for the event to hunt with the legends, some coming from as far away as Florida and New York. She added that all the money raised at the event will go toward funding the foundation's scholarships for Northern's athletes.  

The foundation was started in 2004 as a non-profit organization, as a result of the success of the first Legend for Lights Pheasant Jamboree campaigns, its website said. Since the foundation was founded the Legend for Lights Pheasant Jamboree has contributed more than $1,650,000 to the Northern Athletic Department. 

This contribution has enabled the offering of more scholarships to student athletes, provided assistance for coaches to attend professional clinics, subsidized coaches' salaries, expanded recruiting resources and helped equip the weight room and training room.

The foundation also has a number of other events throughout the year such as the annual Spring Fling Dinner and Auction in early April, the annual Golf Scramble in June and the year-round campaign Wheat for Winners and Cattle For Champions Campaign, which is the foundation's biggest fundraiser.

For more information on the foundation and Legends for Lights, visit its website at http://www.nlasf.com .