Murphy given highest honor by high school association

Stone Child College Business Professor and long-time Havre High School Activities Director Dennis Murphy was bestowed the Montana High School Association's highest honor earlier this month, the James C. Haugen Meritorious Service Award, for his years of service in the organization.

Murphy said the award is named after James Haugen, a long-time executive director of the organization who led it through some of its most turbulent times and had a profound impact on it and the people who make it up.

"To even be mentioned alongside his name, as having had that kind of impression and impact, is quite an honor," Murphy said.

Murphy has been in education for his entire career, and has been coaching for nearly all of it since 1981 back at Florence-Carlton High School before moving to Gildford, where he would teach business and coach boys and girls basketball for four years, then football for a year at Malta High School.

He started at Havre Public Schools in 1990, where he would coach boys and girls basketball and then spend almost two decades as the Havre High School athletics director.

Murphy said despite his love of sports, especially basketball, it wasn't originally what he went to school for, his career path having been one he fell into partially through circumstance.

He said he was going to school for accounting at the University of Montana but one day he was downtown Missoula when he ran into his high school basketball coach, who was looking for an assistant coach and offered it to Murphy, an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

"It was kind of by accident," he said. "Just happened to be at the right place at the right time."

Murphy is still the head golf coach at Havre High, but his time as a basketball coach is done.

"Too many miles on those buses," he said.

However, he said, he still loves the game and follows it as much as he can.

MHSA Executive Director Brian Michelotti said Murphy has had an amazing career as a coach - he had four state championship appearances and his team won the girls basketball state championship in 1997 - and activities director, having organized countless events and tournaments, which are incredibly intricate and complex affairs to set up.

Michelotti said Murphy has been a leader in the association itself, having spent many years on its executive board, including as its president, and is still their parliamentarian, making sure all procedures are followed and legal requirements are met for their meetings and votes.

He said the Haugen award is the greatest honor his organization can give a member and Murphy's career in Montana schools, and his contributions to the association, make him a worthy recipient.

"Dennis has been a great friend of the MHSA. We appreciate his work over his many years and he is a very deserving candidate," he said.

Murphy said he looks back on his career with pride in his own accomplishments, but wants people to know that his accomplishments wouldn't have been possible without the help of many of his colleagues.

He said he's had the pleasure of working under many great head coaches who came to be mentors, and worked with many assistant coaches who taught him a great deal.

He said his Havre High Activities Office administrative assistant, Ginger Chagnon, whom he worked with for 19 years, was particularly integral to so much of what was accomplished in the past decades, and she deserves a tremendous amount of credit.

He said his wife, Jean, was also incredibly supportive of him especially during the most intense parts of his job, and he wanted to thank her for all that she did for him as well.

"It takes a great team to win something like this," he said. "They all had to be part of it"