The year on the Great Falls beat

As 2025 closes out, Montana Free Press reporters are reflecting on the work they’ve done over the course of the year — and what they expect to be writing about heading into 2026.

This may surprise some who view journalists in a certain way, but I don’t like to eavesdrop. I’d rather people feel comfortable around me rather than feel obliged to hush their conversations when I step into a room.

But my ears perked up one morning in May as I sat waiting for a Cascade County commission meeting to start. I overheard Terry Thompson, the county election administrator, mention some frustrating dealings with federal customs agencies at the airport.

After the meeting, I walked into the elections office to talk to Thompson, who sits on the Great Falls Airport Authority Board. She said that the board would be considering a request from U.S. Customs and Border Protection to pay for $75,000 in office equipment costs, an expense the agency had previously covered for years. 

The airport board, as it happened, was meeting that same day. I drove up Gore Hill to catch the meeting at the airport and, with some additional reporting, broke a story about the request that the airport board chairman called “extortion.” A similar request from Customs and Border Protection to the Cut Bank airport exceeded that small airport’s total budget. This was in a year when CBP’s umbrella agency, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, saw significant budget increases. 

That day reinforced the old journalism lesson about the importance of showing up in person. When so much reporting can be done today over Zoom or on the phone, I try to get out into the community I cover for MTFP as much as possible. The effort of being there showed up in my March feature story about The Russell art auction, an October story about the Toby’s House crisis nursery and a May story detailing a deportation case that included American children. The latter story was reported from the federal courthouse, where recordings and outside Zoom viewers aren’t allowed.

I have one more anecdote about being there in person. At about midday on Friday, Sept. 5, I got a tip from a community member about the newly hired fundraising director at the Great Falls Clinic Legacy Foundation. There wasn’t a ton I could do on a Friday afternoon, so I decided to drive over to the foundation office and say hello.

The new fundraising director wasn’t in the office, but the foundation’s coordinator politely showed me around the building, where the organization provides housing for visiting patients and their families. She declined to comment for my story, and I still wonder how much she knew about her new colleague at that time.

I worked through the weekend to report the eventual story, which detailed a history of fraud and theft committed by the newly hired fundraising administrator, Adrian Swensen. It turned out that he was hired to handle the foundation’s donations even though he had once been accused of staging a fake fundraiser. Swensen no longer worked at the foundation two days after my report.

WHAT’S ON THE HORIZON IN 2026?

As we head into 2026, I’ll continue to show up in Great Falls, my hometown, aiming to focus on local government accountability reporting. That meat-and-potatoes community news is crucial for the public to know what is happening in the city, county, schools and other large institutions from week to week. 

While I’ll certainly be keeping my ears open for stories about heavy-handed federal agencies or dubious hiring decisions by local institutions, I’ll be focused first and foremost on explaining the impact of local policy decisions.

I expect to see big news in the commercial and residential developments that were announced in 2025, continuing Great Falls’ growth story. That will include new reporting on the Sentinel missile upgrade project, of which Malmstrom Air Force Base is a big part.

It will also be a big midterm election year. Not only are state legislators up for election, but so are Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter, County Attorney Josh Racki and Clerk and Recorder Sandra Merchant.

In between those efforts, I hope to continue reporting stories about community members whose unique experiences make Great Falls an endlessly interesting place. 

Thank you for reading.