BOZEMAN, Mont. – It’s been more than a decade since Gallatin County Commissioner Steve White first took office. Little did he know that when he entered the Gallatin County Courthouse in 2007, he would be walking up the steps into an office that his dad had sat in 20 years before.
“He said yeah that was my office and I said wow,” said White. “And I kinda remembered it and yeah it has been neat to have an office that my dad held. It has been pretty special.”
White admits, he wasn’t sure his dad would be supportive of his 2006 campaign, but he was completely wrong. His parents called him to say they were on their way to his house where they encouraged him to take office.
After a lot of campaigning and community support, White took office in 2007 ready to make some changes at the county level. One of his biggest pushes was for the county to complete a land exchange with the state for the Logan Landfill.
The landfill paperwork finally was completed this month, just weeks before White would finish his term. What he didn’t know was that his dad had worked on a similar exchange when he was in office in the ’80s.
“It turns out that back in 1986 that when my dad was on the county commission, that they were also exploring an exchange at Logan and it never got off the ground,” said White.
Other projects White is proud to have been a part of was the push for the Gallatin County Detention Center, audio streaming of the county commission meetings and the airport interchange in Belgrade. However, there are some projects he wished to see through, like the future for the county’s Law & Justice Center.
“Those are the things that I would have loved to be part of but as an elected official you just pass the baton onto the next person,” said White.
White plans to stay involved in the community through various ways including teaching a drone education class at Gallatin College.
Scott MacFarlane will take over for White starting the beginning of the year.
