Trego's Mountain Ear

I’ve had some questions brought up after I pointed out that the composition of the LCHS board has been in violation of state law for the past 37 years.  The first question, repeated several times is “How did it happen?”

In 1988, there was an election to unify Lincoln County High School and Eureka Elementary.  It passed in Eureka and Rexford.  The County Superintendent replaced the LCHS Board with the Eureka Elementary Board plus 3 people representing the rural districts, and tasked the Elementary board with a few things to do before the unification was complete.

Among the things that had to be done was renaming LCHS, since state law doesn’t allow a county high school to be unified.  Here I’m giving my best guess as to what occurred – some crass and low lout pulled the relevant minutes from the LCHS record and disposed of the document.  I wasn’t there – but my guess is that several members of that first unified board didn’t want to lose the LCHS name.  I’m guessing that they argued so long and intensely about it that they missed the window of time for unification.

Cindy Middig resigned – and in her absence, there was nobody on the county staff to declare the unification failed due to not completing the legally required tasks.  When Mary Hudspeth was appointed months later, she knew nothing about it. 

Middig’s appointment of the elementary board and the tokens was legal and correct.  When that board failed to perform the tasks of unification – and I think the big one was renaming the high school – unification failed.  Not because of the voters, but because the board, for one reason or another, failed to complete the first tasks it was legally required to perform. 

Since they didn’t complete the task, the two districts were unified from April 20, 1988 to July 1, 1988.  On July 1, the unification was invalid, and the LCHS board should have been called back to duty and the Elementary board reduced to their original elementary duties.  But Middig was gone, and the county had no one on staff to enforce the law – and the Eureka elementary board took over control of the high school in violation of Montana law. 

Here’s the relevant law:

Montana Code Annotated 2023
TITLE 20. EDUCATION
CHAPTER 3. ELECTED OFFICIALS
Part 3. School District Trustees
Membership Of Elected Trustees Of County High School District And Nomination Of Candidates
20-3-356. Membership of elected trustees of county high school district and nomination of candidates. (1) The trustees of a county high school district must include the following:
(a) four trustee positions filled by members residing in the elementary district where the county high school building is located; and
(b) three trustee positions filled by members one of whom resides in each of the three trustee nominating districts in the territory of the high school district outside of the elementary district where the county high school building is located. The county superintendent shall establish the nominating districts, and, unless it is impossible, the districts must have coterminous boundaries with elementary district boundaries.
(2) The provisions of 20-3-305 govern the nomination of candidates for the trustee election prescribed in this section.

Obviously five Eurekans with a token representative from Trego and from Fortine does not match that requirement.  Effectively, LCHS has been governed by an outlaw board of trustees for nearly 37 years.  I am not an attorney – I have no idea how this affects the legality of any decision the board of trustees has made over the past 37 years.  Can an outlaw board grant tenure?  Can it even legally hire?  The one thing I do know is that when Suzy Rios established a new and proper LCHS board of trustees, those folks are going to have a big job looking at the past 37 years of decisions.

How did the minutes disappear?  Who took them?  Again, I can only provide my best guess.  My hypothesis is that some crass and low lout took them.  There were 35 years of opportunity to remove the minutes before I went looking for them.  I figure that the crass and low lout had access to the minutes, and saw some advantage to continuing to operate with the Elementary board of trustees running the county high school – so I figure Crass and Low was either a trustee or a school administrator.  That leaves plenty of suspects, and unless Crass and Low confesses, we’ll never know who the perp was.  What we do know is that there was some advantage – likely financial – to maintaining the un-unified district with the elementary board running things.  The absence of the minutes shows that it was worth breaking the law to perpetuate the unified district setup.  And for heaven’s sake don’t blame Joel – I think he was as surprised as I to learn someone lifted the minutes.

Why did it take so long to find?  Frankly, the Crass and Low lout who pulled the minutes covered the evidence pretty well.  I’m kind of used to researching things – heck, research was my career for years – and it took a stubborn, persistent researcher to figure out what happened.  And luck.  When you’re dealing with school trustees, it isn’t enough just to believe in miracles – you have to rely on them.  Renata had done an article on the unification for the Ear back in 1988, and it put me on the track.

What do you want?  After all, it’s been working fine for 37 years?  I want the law to be followed.  I started looking into this as a Trego board member about 6 years ago.  Trego had only a token member on the high school board – and LCHS had not exactly been topping the state in academic performance. 

There’s an advantage to a school board that only has to worry about the high school.  And real trustees for the rural areas, instead of token representatives will improve things for us.  Did you know that the LCHS bus doesn’t go past Trego school to pick up students?  In the sixties Mrs. Gilmond drove the high school bus up to Lake Creek. 

What I want is for us all to support Suzy Rios (Lincoln County Superintendent of Schools) in correcting the error that fell through the cracks on July 1, 1988.  I expect Noel Durum to be interested in correcting a blunder that allowed the wrong board to control the county high school for 37 years.  It’s just one more example of errors perpetuated for decades.
Ted Roo probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but I would suggest that Suzy Rios bring him back to finish his tour as the most recent legitimate chair of the LCHS board.  I’d suggest that no one on the present board be appointed to the reformed LCHS board of trustees – not saying that they’re bad people, but they have been perpetuating a long term error.  And I’d suggest that Trego continues to have one trustee on the board, that Fortine has one, and that both bantam districts get to vote on a shared third trustee.  That new board will have a lot to do.