Obituaries on The Bozeman Daily Bee

Marlene Haskins, 78

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 20:12:50 +0000

Marlene Haskins died peacefully on July 28 at her home on West Babcock, the same house she and Dale bought in 1992 for what she always called “a perfectly normal amount of money.” The Zillow estimate now reads like a phone number with a typo, a fact she recited at every potluck without resentment, simply as weather.

She worked thirty years in the MSU registrar’s office, remembering every student’s name and most of their mothers’. After Dale passed in 2018, she kept the garden going — tomatoes, zinnias, a stubborn patch of rhubarb that outlasted three zoning changes. The view of the M from her kitchen window filled in gradually: first a subdivision, then a mixed-use development with a cold-press juice bar she never visited but appreciated the concept of.

Fern Mercer, 76

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 13:34:39 +0000

Fern Mercer died July 28 at her home on West Babcock, where she had lived since 1993 when the street still had two empty lots and a feed store. She moved from Missoula with a U-Haul and a business plan for a custom framing shop, which she ran downtown for twenty-seven years until the rent tripled and she retired to frame her own grandchildren’s artwork instead.

Fern remembered when the Co-op was a buying club in a garage and when you could park on Main Street at noon. She remembered the winter of ‘96 when the snow didn’t stop until April, and the summer of ‘01 when the smoke from the fires turned the sun blood-red for weeks. She remembered every contractor who shorted her on a bid and every customer who brought her huckleberry jam as payment.

Viola Pennington, 68

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:41:46 +0000

Viola Pennington died July 28 at her home on South Tracy, where she had lived since 1993 when the street still had two vacant lots and a pasture at the end. She came for a summer job at the Co-op and stayed for the mountains, a phrase she delivered with the same timing every time someone asked.

She worked thirty years at the county clerk’s office, watching the plat maps change from ranches to subdivisions with names like Bridger Creek Estates and Mountain Modern Lofts. Her daughter, Juniper, grew up in the house and now rents in Belgrade with two roommates and a commute. Her son, Corwin, teaches high school in Missoula and visits when the pass is clear.

Roberto 'Beto' Alvarez, 71

Tue, 04 Aug 2026 06:26:36 +0000

Roberto “Beto” Alvarez, 71, died July 28 at his home in Belgrade after a brief illness. He was born March 12, 1955, in Antonito, Colorado, and arrived in the Gallatin Valley in 1998 with a tool belt and a plan to stay six months.

Beto spent twenty-six years framing houses from Four Corners to Big Sky, watching hay fields become subdivisions he could no longer afford to live in. He measured the valley’s change in stud spacing and permit fees. “Used to be you could build a shed without asking permission,” he would say at the Coffee Pot, stirring his coffee the same slow way every morning. “Now the shed needs a variance and the variance needs a lawyer.”

Torstein Hagen, 78

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 12:33:32 +0000

Torstein Hagen died peacefully at home on July 28, 2026, after a brief illness. He was born March 12, 1948, in Ålesund, Norway, and arrived in Bozeman in 1994, a year he referenced in approximately one third of all subsequent conversations.

Torstein purchased his home on West Olive Street in 1996 for what he described as “a completely normal amount of money.” The property is now assessed at a figure that would have purchased a small fjord in his native county. He tracked the increase annually, usually while shoveling the driveway in a Vikings stocking cap.

Wallace 'Wally' Tibbetts, 80

Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:19:13 +0000

Wallace “Wally” Tibbetts died July 22 at his kitchen table with a cup of coffee still warm beside him. He was 80. He came to the Gallatin Valley in 1989 with a U-Haul and a job at the MSU physical plant, back when you could throw a rock from Main Street and hit open field.

He measured his life in acres and irrigation ditches, first leasing pasture on Huffine Lane and later buying forty south of the interstate. The hay fields he cut every July are now a Target, a storage facility, and a subdivision called Meadowlark Crossing that has neither meadowlarks nor a crossing.

Elsbeth Kaufmann, 87

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 19:00:31 +0000

Elsbeth Kaufmann, 87, passed peacefully at her kitchen table with a crossword half-finished and the radio tuned to KBLL. She was born in the farmhouse on Jackrabbit Lane that her grandfather built from a Sears catalog kit, and she never saw a reason to leave it.

Elsie, as everyone called her, watched Belgrade grow from a place where you knew every pickup by its rattle to a place where you knew every pickup by its monthly payment. She worked thirty-two years at the Belgrade Co-op, back when it was a feed store and not a metaphor, and she could still tell you the price of barley in 1974 without checking her notes.

Bernadette Laughlin, 74

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 07:00:26 +0000

Bernadette Laughlin, 74, of Bozeman, died peacefully on July 22, 2026, at her home on West Olive Street, the same house she bought in 1997 for what she always described as “a perfectly reasonable amount of money” and which the county now assesses at a figure that made her laugh until she cried.

Born Bernadette O’Malley on March 14, 1952, in Butte, she arrived in the valley for a summer season at Bridger Bowl and stayed for the next twenty-nine winters. She worked the bulk aisle at the Community Food Co-op for two decades, where she memorized the bulk codes for nutritional yeast and steel-cut oats and could steer any tourist toward the local honey without breaking stride.

Harold 'Hal' Finch, 72

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 06:17:14 +0000

Harold ‘Hal’ Finch passed away peacefully on July 28, 2026, at his home on North 11th Avenue, the same house he purchased in October 1994 for what he described at every subsequent gathering as “a completely normal amount of money, honestly.”

Born in Great Falls on March 12, 1954, Hal arrived in Bozeman during the first great wave of people who would later insist they weren’t part of any wave. He worked thirty-two years at the county road department, retiring the year the first roundabout appeared on Durston, which he took as a personal referendum.

Margaret "marge" Calloway, 84

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 12:12:43 +0000

Margaret “Marge” Calloway, 84, of Bozeman, died peacefully on July 28, 2026, at her home on West Babcock, two blocks from the house she and Frank bought in 1968 for what she always called “a normal amount of money.”

She ran Calloway Small Engine Repair on North 7th for forty-two years, back when North 7th was two lanes and the only traffic jam was the occasional cattle drive. She could coax a stubborn chainsaw into starting with three pulls and a few choice words, a skill she considered more practical than anything taught at the university up the hill.