Powder River Examiner -

Thursday, November 16, 1989

Quaring voted in as Mayor in well-publicized election

Roger Quaring was voted in as the new Mayor of Broadus as a write-in during Tuesday’s election…an election that for reasons still unexplained caught the eye of most of the nation.

Results of the election and an interview with Quaring appeared the following morning on the front page of the daily edition of the Billings Gazette. The election also made the Seattle, Washington newspaper that day. Later in the week, Quaring was interviewed by the New York Times, along with radio stations from Washington D.C., Boston, and New York.

One explanation given for the attention was that the rest of the country was awestricken (or envious) in finding a community where politicians are such a rarity that the mayor position had to be filled by a write-in. Either that or it was a really slow news day.

Quaring, who received 27 votes, had not expressed an interest in the position and was surprised when he was told of the election results. In fact, he had left town that day and was not told of the results of the election until Tuesday evening.

Quaring said he decided to accept the position after talking with members of the Town Council and community.

Election officials said the vote tally for Quaring would have been higher. About 30 voters, however, did not mark an X on the ballot, even though they wrote in Quaring’s name as mandated by law.

In Ward I and Ward II, Ethel Lancaster and Garry Wallace were elected to terms on the Council, respectively, with 39 and 24 votes. Both had been appointed to the Council after the elected representatives had moved from their wards.

All three terms run for four years.

The terms will begin on January 1 of 1990.

Other write-in votes cast for Mayor included: Wallace, nine votes; Bob McCurdy, seven; John Sims, four; Lancaster and Klayton Rogge, three each; Gene Steadman, Les Thompson and Elna Linville, two votes each and Lyman Amsden, Doug Wilbert, Bob Washington, Ken Jesse, Dick Rolfson and Don Gatlin, one vote each.

Broadus to petition to join conference

With enrollment declining, Broadus Schools Superintendent George Bailey asked for Monday night and received the Unified Board of Trustees’ blessing to petition the Montana High School Association for reclassification as a Class C School

Because the enrollment is still over what Bailey called the “magic number” of 120, however, he said the proposal probably would not be accepted for at least one more and probably not for two more years.

Projected enrollment for grades nine through 12 show an enrollment of 138 in 1990. By 1991 the enrollment, according to the projected figures, will drop to 123. Future enrollment projections include: 1992, 129; 1993, 123; 1994, 116; 1995, 118; 1996, 113; 1997, 114 and 1998, 117.

To come up with the figures, Bailey used current enrollment figures from the Broadus Elementary and junior high schools and added the enrollments of the country schools.

Bailey said that the 4-C division would be the “natural league” for Broadus because of travel.

Under the proposal, Broadus would be aligned with Carter County, Garfield County, Hysham, Savage, Terry and Wibaux for football; with Carter County, Garfield County, Hysham, Plevna, Rosebud, Terry and Wibaux for girls’ basketball, and with Busby, Carter County, Garfield County, Hysham, Pine Hills, Plevna, Rosebud, Terry and Wibaux for boys’ basketball.

Bailey said he has received the support of the other Class 4C Schools to make the move, when the enrollment merits the change.

“We probably won’t move this year, but it’s a good idea to prime the pump… to get them (MHSA) thinking about it now,” Bailey said. “4-C is really a nice conference for us travel wise. But, it’s also not a conference we’re going to walk all over in sports. In girls’ basketball we split with Rosebud and got beat by Terry. We did beat Ekalaka twice.”

Bailey said he had also approached the local coaches, and received tentative approval.

“Lynn (Safranski) really doesn’t want to coach eight-man football but he said that might be what it will take for us to win. When we’re 140 and less and go against schools of 240 or more it’s a numbers game,” Bailey said. “With a talented class we might be able to win our conference, but when we get to state we’re looking at schools such as Cut Bank or Wolf Point, with 350 kids.”

The Superintendent also warned that while Broadus probably will not be granted permission to move into the Class 4C league this year, a reshuffling of the B division might mean a move back in the “Canadian League.” That would place Broadus back in the same league with the far-away schools such as Plentywood and Poplar. Broadus would also have to again travel to Glendive for tournaments, a town that has not treated athletes or fans at all well in past years. In fact, several Board members and fans Monday spoke of the welcome feeling they got from the Hardin community at last weekend’s tournament. “It was nice to feel welcome for a change. We sure didn’t get that feeling at Glendive,” said one board member.

Pressuring the MSBA for the Class B re-alignment are the schools of Baker, Red Lodge and Columbus, according to Bailey. Baker apparently doesn’t like the idea of going so far west, especially for tournaments, and Red Lodge and Columbus don’t like the idea of traveling so far east, Bailey said.