5 minute read
Mean Loreene
By Will Barrett - PRIME EDITOR
All her life, Loreene Reid has been putting others first. Stemming from an upbringing in Mitchell, South Dakota, where her father emphasized community efforts over individual accolades, she has always been advocating for those who can’t. Most of her life Reid has been working as a conservationist in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming, but in the last three decades she’s been advocating for the disabled too. In high school she was involved in local politics. Her neighbor was Senator George McGovern, who would eventually run for office as the Democratic nominee in the 1972 Presidential election. His focus in South Dakota was to get everyone access to food, health, and clean water. Reid explains, “with having that kind of role model in your neighborhood, we really sat down at the dinner table and my father would say to us, what did you do for the community today?”. She fought to clean up the environment on a local level, and even campaigned with a young Al Gore, working on the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Conservation campaigns at the grass roots level of the late sixties and early seventies were largely unfunded. “We all just grabbed our sleeping bags and our backpacks and went where we needed to go to do our research, or to do fieldwork, or to sit by politicians’ backdoors and remind them of what needed to be done,” said Reid. “We didn’t know what fundraising really was, we were always in the red from what it seemed”. As a girl scout, Reid went out with birders from the Sacajawea Audubon Society, where she caught the bug for birds. She says it made her a better student, someone more attentive and appreciative of the small things. “When you become a birder, you become focused on details that you normally wouldn’t be focused on”. During that time, high schools put a great amount of pressure on choosing a career. Reid knew she wanted to be a wildlife biologist or a forester, however the backup plan she proposed to her teachers was to be a fashion designer. The vast differences between those career paths worried her professors, but Reid was persistent in pursuing her dreams. She worked full time all through college both at Montana State, and then at her preferred destination, the University of Montana. She envisioned herself at the University of Montana in the wildlife program, but her father thought of it as a hippy school, too notorious for drug use. She initially enrolled at Montana State in the Computer Science department in 1975, and eventually made the right connections and enough money to transfer herself to the University of Montana, despite her father’s disapproval. At school in Missoula, Reid joined the Fly Valley Audubon Society and began working on the Montana Environmental Protection Act, a joint effort that fought to protect public lands, water, and wildlife, which was eventually passed in the late eighties. She never finished her undergraduate degree, but to this day, considers herself a jack of all trades, yet a master of none. In 1979, Reid married her partner Matt, and moved to Bozeman in the early eighties where they welcomed their two children, Nicole and Nathan. She then reconnected with the Sacajawea Audubon Society, the group that first sparked her interest in wildlife biology, and helped to put an end to Ski Yellowstone, an attempt by developers to build a resort on a
grizzly habitat in Red Canyon. The newlyweds were spending a lot of time in the Student Union Building at MSU, starting what would become the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. They also founded Reid Environmental Services, which prevented the development of land on grizzly habitats, before forming a tourism group that sought to show people bears in their natural habitat, and educate them on their importance in the ecosystem. Reid Environmental Services went bankrupt, and their tourism group, Bears and Ecosystems, was forced to dissolve when her husband Matt became sick with a rare brain disease. He passed away in 2014, to what Reid believes was from the exposure to certain drugs he used on bears earlier in his career. Reid was always performing a balancing act, but never regretted taking on any of the projects and causes she thought right to fight for. One effort that stands out was Reid’s long legal battle to protect the rights of her brother Lyle and his wife Pam. She felt their rights were being infringed upon because they were both disabled, and the law didn’t want them to have all the things able-bodied and able minded folks were afforded. When asked about the importance of standing up for what’s right, Reid explained, “If you have the tools, the ability, the knowledge…You have to step up. Don’t stand in front or push them, simply stand beside them”. Things like a marriage license and a home of their own had to be fought for; by Reid, the non-profit A.W.A.R.E, Senators Jon Tester and Max Baucus, and many others over the course of almost two decades. With the help of an attorney, she even represented Pam and Lyle in a hearing when their Medicaid was in jeopardy of being taken away. Throughout her time with the Sacajawea Audubon Society, Reid’s passion never wavered. She became a board member for them, and eventually served as president from 2012, to 2018. Their most recent project, The Indreland Audubon Wetland Preserve, has been one of Reid’s smaller projects but she says it’s been the toughest. “It’s so much easier to destroy a wetland than to preserve it,” says Reid, “the right decision is going to be the hard decision”. The goal for their project goes beyond conserving and enhancing the local wetland community, they’re also seeking to create educational opportunities to teach the public about ecology and environmental issues. All throughout her life, Reid has centered her efforts around conservation and advocacy. From dinner table conversations with her father, to fair hearings on behalf of her brother, Loreene Reid has approached life with such intent and fervor that her family and friends have given her the nickname, Mean Loreen. However unfitting the name may be for someone as warm and compassionate, Reid welcomes it with open arms.
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A Note from the Editor:
Do you know a senior who should be featured in a future edition of prime? Email your suggestions to Karen E. Davis at kdavis@belgrade-news.com.
Mean Loreene.......................................................2 Xxx.........................................................................4 One of those days..................................................6 Pet safe landscaping..............................................8 Old guys routines................................................10 PSA: Women may need financial “catch-up”.....12 Meal service in senior centers ............................14 Bozeman Senior Center Recreation..................16
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