Montana
Obituary: Clifford Allen Nelson
Clifford Allen Nelson passed away at Logan Health in Chester on July 5, 2024. Cliff was born to John & Louise Nelson on 11 June 1948, in Havre. Cliff was the oldest of 8 children.
A Celebration of Life BBQ, will be Saturday July 13th at 1:00 in the Joplin Memorial Park, Joplin, Mt. Military honors, by Malmstrom AFB Honor Guard.
Cliff only made it to the 6th grade in school. He helped at home raising his siblings & doing farm chores. He later went to work for Buttery’s as a baker. This went well until they realized he wasn’t 18. In 1968, he was drafted into the Army & Viet Nam he went. He spent 18 months there. On returning, he moved to Hungry Horse, there he worked at Anaconda Aluminum plant and went into construction work & got married. This marriage produced 5 children, after a stent in Hungry Horse, they moved to Havre where he worked at the post yard and met his lifelong friend Chad. He later moved his family to Browning where he worked at the bus garage.
Cliff went to Havre & learned how to fly an airplane. It didn’t take much training. He bought his1st plane & flew back to Browning. He then moved to Great Falls, divorced, worked for DJs Mazda & started his own car body & mechanic shop. His dear friend Frank and he became involved with stock car racing, which he continued to do until a couple years ago. He raced a variety of classes in Northwest United States and Canada. Cliff moved back to Havre & went back into the construction business. He helped his good friend Chris (who was the Chief of police) with police work & hunting coyotes. They were licensed by the state to do predator control. In 1979, he met his now wife, Nancy & they had 1 child. In November of 1980, they lost their home to a fire & moved to Kremlin. Cliff got the older boys involved with boxing in Havre. Work then took him and his family to Evanston, Wyoming. There he was a top mechanic in the oil field. After a few years there, Great Falls called him home. He started his body shop up again & also back to racing!
He then ventured back to Hungry Horse, & on to Alaska. In Alaska he mainly did construction work, but also worked a gold mine, which involved the whole family.
In 1986 we moved back to Hungry Horse & started Nelson Construction. Cliff became a hunting guide for a friend & spent most of the hunting season in Spotted Bear, which he really enjoyed. Wintertime was for boxing, where he helped start a boxing club & trained & traveled all over with the boxers. Cliff became involved with the Hungry Horse Vol. Fire Dept. He later became Chief until he retired from it in 1999.
Cliff was asked to be Santa in Hungry Horse. He really loved visiting the kids & giving them gifts. He loved it so much, he started being Santa in Chester, then later in Joplin. No matter how rough he felt, being the flying Santa was always a must! He loved the children!
In 1998, an opportunity came to run the Tiber Marina. 11 years spent running the marina & Cliff still worked construction in Hungry Horse. Cliff loved being at the marina & meeting so many wonderful people. He enjoyed putting on BBQ’s & good parties! He enjoyed being back on the east, side & so we moved to Joplin.
He enjoyed fishing, & he did several tournaments with his friend Chris. They managed to win Fresno & Tiber! They did tournaments all over the state & even traveled to Canada for some.
In 2011, we purchased the Joplin Bar which he helped run until his health started to get the best of him. He was able to venture out at our last Art in the Park & Car show to see everyone.
Cliff is survived by his wife Nancy, sons Jr (Jenny) of Hungry Horse, John (Darci) of Ulm, Jay of Joplin, Josh of Hungry Horse. Daughters Janey of Kalispell, Judy (Christopher) of Harrison, & Kim of California, son Joe of Iowa. Sisters Karen, Sharon (Greg) of Kalispell, Margaret of Ashly Lake, Donna of. Missouri, Brother Leonard (Trudy) of Vaughn. 31 grandchildren & 31 great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his son Jim, his parents, his in-laws Ed & Billie Ribich, brothers Melvin & Carl, numerous other family & friends.
ROUNDUP, Mont. —
The Rehder Creek Fire is burning 16 miles southeast of Roundup has grown to about 5,000 acres, prompting evacuation orders for residents in the Bruner Mountain Area/Subdivision.
The fire started Feb. 26, the cause is unknown and containment was at 0%.
Evacuation orders are in effect for all residents in the Bruner Mountain Area/Subdivision. The Musselshell County Sheriff’s Office is coordinating the evacuation orders, and 911 reverse calls have been sent out to advise people in the area.
A shelter is opening at the Roundup Community Center. Residents were told to contact Musselshell County DES for further information.
Firefighter and public safety remain the top priority. The public is asked to avoid the Fattig Creek and Rehder Road area so emergency personnel can safely and effectively perform their work.
Fire resources assigned to the incident include 40 total personnel, 11 engines, one Type 2 helicopter, three tenders and two dozers.
Montana
Escobar, Jayapal, Members of Congress Call on Camp East Montana to be Shut Down – Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar (TX-16) – joined by Representative Pramila Jayapal, the Ranking Member of the Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement Subcommittee, and 22 other Members of Congress – sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Todd Lyons calling for the immediate closure of Camp East Montana in El Paso. They cite urgent humanitarian concerns following multiple deaths in custody, documented unsafe conditions, and serious deficiencies in medical care.
This marks the fourth letter Congresswoman Escobar has sent to DHS and ICE leadership. The previous three letters have gone unanswered.
The letter can be found in its entirety below and here.
“Secretary Noem and Acting Director Lyons:
We are urgently calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS or the Department) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to shut down Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas.
Camp East Montana has been operational for six months, and at least three people have died at the site since December 2025: Francisco Gaspar-Andres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, and Victor Manuel Diaz. The El Paso County Medical Examiner has officially ruled Lunas Campos’ death a homicide, citing “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”
Camp East Montana was constructed in a matter of weeks and opened before construction was complete and it does not have enough federal staff on-site to provide adequate oversight. Over the last several months, Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, in whose district this facility is located, has sent multiple letters to DHS and ICE regarding concerns about the conditions at Camp East Montana, and has received no responses.
According to detainees, there have been constant and consistent problems at the facility since it opened, beginning with the facility’s poor construction and poor ambient temperature control. Upon opening, the drinking water at Camp East Montana tasted foul and made some detainees sick. Detainees continue to be served inadequate meals, including food that is rotten or frozen; last fall, the facility was also consistently failing to make dietary accommodations for detainees. Detainees have shared that they have sporadic access to outside spaces and recreational areas, and that their dormitory pods are cleaned only once every eight days, despite pods housing up to 72 people at a time. Laundry services are not consistent, and people are washing their clothes in the facility showers. Additionally, the facility experiences flooding and sewage backups when it rains, leading to stagnant water.
One of the biggest concerns with the Camp East Montana facility is the inadequate medical care being provided to detainees. Our offices have heard that only the most ill detainees are referred to the medical unit and that there are inconsistencies as to how soon after arriving detainees are able to undergo initial medical screenings. Detainees with chronic health issues who rely on regimented medications for their health have had difficulty accessing necessary medications, including blood pressure medication and insulin.
At least one of the deaths that occurred in ICE custody, the death of Francisco Gaspar-Andres, appears to partially be the result of poor medical care by staff at the facility. According to ICE’s own account, Gaspar-Andres sought medical attention from facility staff for increasingly serious symptoms, but was only transferred to an area hospital once his condition had severely deteriorated.
In addition to our concerns about poor medical care, we are also aware that detainees have experienced irregular access to their legal counsel, including instances of detainees having only two minutes allotted per phone call every 8 days, which is contrary to ICE’s Detention Standards on access to counsel, and that the belatedly created law library lacks adequate resources for the amount of people currently held at the facility. In January 2026, ICE announced the on-site death of Geraldo Lunas Campos “after experiencing medical distress.” ICE opened an investigation into the death, but did not provide a cause of death. However, The Washington Post later reported that another man detained at Camp East Montana had witnessed guards choking Lunas Campos when he refused to enter a segregated housing unit. Weeks later, the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled that Lunas Campos had experienced “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression” and ruled his death a homicide.
Lunas Campos is the first detainee to die at Camp East Montana as a result of a use-of-force incident, but we are strongly concerned that he will not be the last if ICE is allowed to continue operating Camp East Montana.
ICE was given $45 billion in taxpayer dollars in the reconciliation bill, $1.2 billion of which were awarded to Acquisition Logistics, LLC, a company with no previous experience managing immigration detention facilities, to build and oversee Camp East Montana. However, in the wake of three deaths in custody so far, continued concerns about conditions at the facility, and ICE’s apparent disinterest in responding to oversight letters from Congress, we do not believe Camp East Montana is being run professionally or responsibly.
Camp East Montana must be shut down. For the safety of everyone at the facility, for an end to abuses to detainees, and for fiscal responsibility to the American people, the site cannot continue to operate. We are calling on DHS and ICE to move to immediately close operations at Camp East Montana.
We look forward to hearing from the Department promptly on this matter.
The other co-signers include Representatives Yassamin Ansari, Nanette Barragán, Yvette Clarke, Lloyd Doggett, Maxwell Frost, Jesús “Chuy” García, Sylvia Garcia, Daniel Goldman, Jimmy Gomez, Henry Johnson, Stephen Lynch, Seth Moulton, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delia Ramirez, Andrea Salinas, Janice Schakowsky, Darren Soto, Rashida Tlaib, Paul Tonko, Lauren Underwood, Gabe Vasquez, and Nydia Velázquez.
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