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  • Supporting MSU-Northern

    Updated Aug 4, 2022

    In a few short years, Montana State University-Northern will be celebrating the 100th year of its founding. Over the course of the near-century it has been in existence, thousands upon thousands of Montana’s sons and daughters have been educated here in Havre at an institution that is one of the most rural universities in the nation. Our local university thrives because of support from policymakers, community members, business leaders and others who are committed to its success and understand the value of a robust...

  • A truly American moment?

    Tim Leeds|Updated Feb 25, 2022

    Americans have a history of coming together — even if only briefly — during times of crisis. World War I, World War II, the terrorist attacks on Sept, 11, 2001, those times brought Americans together to oppose a common enemy. Republicans and Democrats in Congress alike supported presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s call to protect Americans and the world in global wars, and the nation came together to stand against terrorism in September 2001. Another was when America joined allies from around the...

  • Daines, Rosendale, Gianforte need to join Racicot

    Updated Feb 18, 2022

    Though a lifelong Democrat, lately I’ve been spending time working actively with Republican friends I have known and respected for decades. My friend Mick Ringsak and I have been conducting joint interviews and meetings advancing the cause of political civility in this age of tribalism. My most recent column about my Republican friend Wade Dahood, Delegate to Montana’s Constitutional Convention, also focused on civility and respect. I’m working with my GOP friend Bob Brown, former president of the Senate and secretary o...

  • Our View: Why won't the county commission fund the health department?

    Updated Feb 18, 2022

    It seems sort of simple. Hill County received money from the federal government to help cover expenses of dealing with a worldwide pandemic and national emergency. The Hill County Health Department has incurred major extra expenses dealing with that national emergency and global pandemic, including hiring additional staff members, incurring overtime by department staff members and getting additional equipment and supplies. Therefore, the Hill County Commission should provide the health department with the American Recovery...

  • Our View - County commission again ignores state law

    Updated Dec 10, 2021

    The Hill County Commission apparently has appointed a new Hill County attorney. It also apparently, and ironically, broke state law in its appointment of the highest legal officer in the county. The commission’s weekly calendar for next week reports the oath of office will be administered Monday to the new county attorney, who will take the place of Karen Alley, who resigned to take a position out of the area. Appointing a county attorney to fill the term is not the problem, in fact, it is the duty of the county commission...

  • Our View - Personal responsibility can stop COVID-19

    Updated Oct 11, 2021

    With numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths continuing to go up in this region and across Montana and the nation, people need to follow Gov. Greg Gianforte’s request and use personal responsibility to deal with this pandemic. And the numbers are going up faster than they did a year ago despite people being vaccinated and many people already having had the disease, which also increases resistance, although not as much as vaccination, health experts say. Hill County is reported to have 6,914 people fully vaccinated, 52 percent...

  • Our View - Condolences and thanks on Amtrak derailment

    Updated Sep 27, 2021

    Havre Daily News offers its deepest condolences to the families of the people who died and to the people injured in the derailment Saturday near Joplin. And we offer our deepest thanks to the people who responded to help. The situation is tragic, with three people killed, several hospitalized and dozens or more injured of the 141 people traveling on or 16 working on the train. We cannot express how sorry the tragedy makes us feel. And thanks to the dozens, likely hundreds, of people who responded to help. Emergency...

  • Our View - America united

    Updated Sep 13, 2021

    Twenty years ago Saturday, the world changed. People in the United States and around the world watched in shock and horror as terrorists hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a fourth plane, believed to be targeting the White House or U.S. Capitol, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew heroically overcame the hijackers. And people watched the bravery and selflessness of the emergency responders who worked to fight...

  • Our View  - Situation in RFD1 is mind-boggling

    Updated Sep 3, 2021

    The situation in Rural Fire District 1 is mind-boggling. It seems fairly simple. Havre Fire Department has had an agreement to put out fires in the district, a ring that runs around the outside edge of Havre. Havre’s government said violations on fire codes have been found in the district, putting residents and firefighters at risk when fires occur. That includes the Havre Fire Department responding to a fire at a location where large amounts of flammable liquid were stored that the firefighters didn’t know about. They...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: Staring at a blank piece of paper

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Aug 12, 2021

    Here I am again, sitting at my computer, staring at a blank page of paper that’s not real paper, waiting for inspiration to write, to share with you, the latest happenings in my real life. And one of the most real things that occurs to me is guilt. I feel guilty. Real good ol’ Catholic guilt. Let’s take the little things first. Every day it rains, here on the high plateau surrounded with mountains in central Mexico. Beginning in June, through July and now into August....

  • The Postscript - Bad gardener

    Carrie Classon|Updated Aug 4, 2021

    I have never been a gardener. This makes me feel like a misfit in my family. My mother is a wonderful gardener. She had an enormous vegetable garden in the suburbs before it became fashionable to do so. Her mother was also an avid gardener. She escaped the demands of 11 children by spending time with her flowers. There are photos of my grandma in her garden and she looks as if she is having a wonderful time, but I figure any activity that would allow you to escape the demands...

  • In for the long view - long-term

    Updated Apr 29, 2021

    Management of natural resources needs to be a long-view and long-term proposition. This is not to say that some short-term issues cannot be addressed with temporary short-term action. In managing uses, economic opportunity and values of natural resources, there are and needs to be multiple “tools” available. Limiting ourselves to one tool is not in natural resource values or our best interest. Rarely do natural resource management challenges have single “silver bullet” solutions. In practice managing natural...

  • Our View - County totally mishandled the mask mandate

    Updated Mar 23, 2021

    Watching the county commission handle whether Hill County should have a mask mandate has been like watching The Keystone Cops. Except it isn’t funny. The chair of the Hill County Board of Health, Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson, said Monday the mask mandate is over. Whether he had the authority to do that is another question, but more on that later. After COVID-19 numbers and deaths shot through the roof in the state and in Hill County last fall and early winter, the county issued a mask mandate and shortly afterward...

  • Letter to the Editor - HB 505 - Ranching for wildlife

    Updated Feb 22, 2021

    Rep.Wylie Galt, R Martinsdale, has introduced HB 505, a goldmine for landowners and outfitters, which intends to take licensing of non-residents out of the hands of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. This bill would establish landowner licenses for, not only cows, but also for bulls. A new license, Class B-13, is a landowner-sponsored non-resident elk combination that would allow a landowner to sponsor up to 10 license applicants pursuant to this section if the landowner owns 640 acres or more contiguous acres within a hunting distric...

  • Our View: People still need to treat COVID like a deadly disease

    Updated Jan 22, 2021

    Despite daily confirmed case numbers of COVID-19 generally dropping in the area and in the state, government mandates being rescinded or expiring and vaccine rolling out, Havre Daily News hopes people still take the disease seriously and treat it like a deadly illness rampant in their communities. That’s what it is. As of reports this morning, close to 100 million people in the world have contracted the disease and more than 2 million people have died. The U.S. has seen nearly 25 million cases and more than 400,000 people...

  • Letter to the Editor - Thanks, Havre for the Memorial Park Christmas lights

    Updated Dec 4, 2020

    Editor, I have enjoyed for the past several years the spectacular Christmas lights in Memorial Park on Fifth Avenue, but this year the lighting display seems brighter and more inspiring than ever. This may well be the most beautiful display of an otherwise pretty dismal 2020. Thank you guys for your work and genius. Thank you, Havre, I love you. Frank Miller, MD Havre...

  • Looking out my Backdoor: In my garden of earthly delights

    Sondra Ashton|Updated Nov 30, 2020

    Editor’s note: Due to an editorial error, this column did not run before Thanksgiving. My world is circumscribed by the boundaries of the gringo part of the rancho. I walk the lanes. This morning when I arrived at my turn-around spot out by the entrance to the highway, I stopped to marvel. I saw, heading toward Ahualulco, a man on a three-wheel motorcycle, a custom job, wearing a modified helmet to resemble something from WWI, you know, Snoopy and the Red Baron. The bike...

  • COVID bringing 'No Vacancy' signs to health care

    Updated Nov 13, 2020

    Imagine pulling up to your local hospital and finding a “no vacancy” sign. You have COVID and need hospitalization, but no beds are available. Or you are barely able to walk due to intense chronic pain, only to find your hip replacement surgery is canceled because your hospital lacks the bed space or staff to help you. Since the beginning of the pandemic, health care industry leaders have warned repeatedly about the danger of being “overwhelmed” by the onslaught of COVID cases in hospitals. Well, that day may have...

  • What is wrong with people?

    Tim Leeds|Updated Oct 5, 2020

    What is wrong with people? In one day this weekend, the state saw almost as many cases of COVID-19 confirmed as it saw in the first three months of its delclared medical emergency. Montana had its first cases of COVID-19 confirmed March 14 and its first COVID-19-related death March 26. By June 1, two-and-a-half months later, Montana had 519 confirmed cases, 17 COVID-19-related deaths and two hospitalizations at the time due to the disease. Sunday, the state had 14,635 confirmed cases, 4,851 active, 191 hospitalizations and...

  • Our View: Shame on McLean and Peterson for endangering people's lives

    Updated Aug 17, 2020

    Editor’s note: This version has been edited to reflect that people can make online requests for absentee ballots. Shame, shame on Hill County Commissioners Diane McLean and Mark Peterson. With a stroke of the pen, they have put people's health and very lives at risk. McLean and Peterson voted down a resolution that would have sent mail ballots to every active registered voter in the county, giving them the option to avoid going to the polls and risking being exposed to COVID-19. And praise goes to Hill County Commissioner...

  • Our View - The facts on People's Rights

    Updated Aug 10, 2020

    The Havre Daily News has received complaints, via Facebook, by telephone and now in an opinion column and a letter, printed on this page, about its coverage of people attending meetings in Havre held by People’s Rights Montana District 1. The complaints basically say the articles did not give enough credit to false claims made by People’s Rights and at the meeting that directives to slow the spread of COVID-19 are unconstitutional and illegal; the recommended actions don’t work and are harmful; and that the articles...

  • Our View: Just the facts, people. Just the facts

    Updated May 15, 2020

    Many claims and comments have been made about novel coronavirus 2019 and the illness it causes, COVID-19, from the start, and they are continuing. People need to be careful what they say. To start with, people shouldn’t call it “the flu,” whether it is with any racist modifier or not. Coronavirus is not the flu. Influenza is caused by the influenza virus. And that is one of the problems that has led to restrictions and shutdowns across the nation, and the world, to slow the spread of the virus. It is new.  Evidence...

  • Our View: Daines, Gianforte need to be straight up with constituents

    Updated Apr 28, 2020

    Editor's note: This version adds additional background. Two of Montana’s federal lawmakers need to start being straightforward with their constituents. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., and U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., both have been telling constituents what assistance is being provided by federal COVID-19 aid bills, without telling them some of that aid was added when Democrats delayed passage of the bills containing it to add to the bills.. Both Daines and Gianforte have blasted the Democrats in Congress for...

  • Responsibilities of citizenship during pandemic

    Updated Mar 31, 2020

    As the death toll from the novel coronavirus rises, we are brutally faced with the reality that public policy directly affects the number of Americans and Montanans who are victimized by this modern plague. And also by the reality that, because of its nature, public policy is not always driven by cold hard facts, science and evidence, but is at least partially driven by politics. In some ways that is bad, but in other ways it is good and necessary. This is a time when people are called upon to join the communal effort to... Full story

  • Our View - Common sense, following guidelines, will beat COVID-19

    Updated Mar 26, 2020

    The novel coronavirus 2019 and the disease it causes, COVID-19, is now confirmed to be in Hill County. It probably was a matter of when, not if, it would be confirmed here. The important thing for people to remember is to continue the practices health officials and the government have been urging and requiring for more than a week now in Montana. The disease can cause serious illness and even death, but most people who acquire the virus will have relatively mild symptoms or... Full story

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