By HDN Editorial Board
The Hi-Line is in a world of hurt right now. A fourth year of drought, compounded by low wheat prices and a stiffled national economy, make for bad times, and a lot of people are worried. How everyone wishes it would rain or snow.
So we understand why an area farm implement dealer was distressed when we erroneously included the business's name in a story about a young man accused of stealing lawn tractors from an implement company in Park County and selling them to people in Havre.
It probably seemed like another blow to business, another bad, dry wind.
Havre police told us that the young man's father owns an implement business here and noted that the father's business was not involved or aware of the alleged crime. We incorrectly reported the name of the business the father owns.
We erroneously said he owns Meissner Tractors Inc. He does not.
The name of Meissner Tractors had no business being in that story.
Most people probably recognized the mistake as soon as they read the story. People in the ag business know each other and have known each other for years.
But we can't ignore the distress we've caused the people at Meissner Tractors. Ag people have enough to worry about right now. We didn't mean to add to those worries.
We are deeply sorry for the mistake.
