Knudsen stumps for HD 33 at Pachyderm meeting

First-time candidate for political office Casey Knudsen introduced himself to members of the Pachyderm Club Friday during the group's meeting in the Antique Room at The Duck Inn in Havre.

Knudsen, 25, is the Republican candidate for the House District 33 seat now occupied by Mike Lang, who is running for the state Senate.

He faces Democrat Mike Finley, a retired BNSF railway worker from North Havre in November's general election,

The house district runs from north of the Milk River in Havre east to Glasgow, encompassing portions of  Hill, Blaine and Phillips counties.

A Malta native, Knudsen holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Montana State University in Bozeman. Since graduating five years ago, Knudsen, has been working on his family's ranch and starting his own engineering design company.

He said he hopes to build the company, while ranching.

"It's tough to be just farming and ranching, especially with the prices we got these days," he said.

If elected, Knudsen said, he will concentrate on issues of agriculture, business and education.

He said garnering support for funding for the upgrade of the deteriorating St. Mary's Diversion will be a priority. The 29-mile set of dikes, canals and siphons supplies much to most, depending on the year, of the water that flows through the Milk River.

Students should have a marketable skill when they leave high school, Knudsen said.

"I don't agree that everybody has to go to college and everybody needs to do all this. There are other options," Knudsen said.

Those could include trades such as plumbing and woodworking, he said.

Promoting such skills training would benefit not only students, but the business community as well, Knudsen said, adding that one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses is finding qualified workers. Northern Montana has great economic potential, especially with U.S. Highway 2, which runs from the Great Lakes West to the Port of Seattle, in the region.

"My view is, if Helena can have a large aerospace manufacturing industry, why can't Havre, Malta and Glasgow," Knudsen said?

In his agriculture-heavy district, Knudsen said, he believes that reservations and agriculture can come together to address the issue of free-roaming bison, also called buffalo.

Montana has transferred bison from the herd based on Yellowstone National Park onto tribal lands since 2011 and the animals generally are allowed to roam freely by the tribes. Many critics of the move say that bison carry diseases such as brucellosis and can cause property damage.

"It's not the animal, it's the idea of federal control of land," Knudsen said.

He said that in and around his district there is also a great deal of sour feeling towardorganizations such as The American Prairie Foundation, a nonprofit conservation group which Knudsen said is buying up land in Phillips County and working to create a large prairie reserve.

Many are critical of the group's attempts to buy private land to connect pieces of state and federal land which American Prairie Foundation leases.

Knudsen said ranchers and residents feel the federal and state government are allowing the foundation to buy up large swaths of land in the county.

However, Knudsen said, because they are property owners, lawmakers and critics of such organizations need to be careful if they seek a legislative solution.

"The laws you pass to take away their rights are the same laws they are going to use to take away yours," he said.