In the midst of a political battle at the start of the 2025 Montana Legislature, Sen. Mike Cuffe said Wednesday he wanted to present a bill to honor a fallen Vietnam war soldier from Libby.

Cuffe, R-Eureka, said it’s his eighth and last session, and he wanted to offer a bill to pay tribute to the late Staff Sgt. Arthur J. Rambo, who, he said, was nothing like the aggressive movie character.

“Rambo’s personality was 100% the opposite of the man in the movie,” Cuffe said. “There’s a very caring, giving man.”

The bill describes Rambo as a family man who was active in his community, in baseball and talent shows, and in college, sang in the Carroll College Carrolleers, where he met his wife, Helen Ryan.

After he started working with the family, Cuffe mulled the “wrangling,” “elbowing,” and “negotiating about one thing or another” that might be needed to get the bill passed.

But the political dispute in the Senate, over the makeup of committees, slowed its work, and it opened a window for the bill, one Cuffe believes has become even more necessary.

“This is a feel-good kind of a bill,” he said. “This is a very honorable kind of a bill. This is a bill, I believe, that is urgently needed.”

Rambo was drafted into service and didn’t seek an exemption for which he was eligible, the bill said, and Cuffe said some lawmakers were part of the draft too. In 1969, Rambo arrived in Vietnam, and a few months later, his unit came under attack.

“Staff Sgt. Arthur J. Rambo worked heroically under fire to save his crew members and their military assets,” said the bill. “He sustained fatal injuries and was awarded the Silver Star.

“ … He was survived by his wife, Helen, his daughter, Kerry Lynn, his newborn daughter, Amy Denise, and his extended family.”

Wednesday, after senators in a committee took another split vote related to how they would manage committees, they approved the measure to create a memorial bridge in Libby for Rambo on a 50-to-0 vote.

Cuffe said it would name the Highway 37 bridge that enters Libby from the north, and the sign would have language that honored Rambo along with other fallen veterans.

“In spite of all of our differences, our factions, our personalities,” Cuffe said, the bill “would help unite us, help us all feel human compassion.”

He also said he believes Rambo would appreciate it.

On the first day of the session, Monday, the Senate took a vote that upset a plan Republican leadership had planned for how committees would work, and some senators have canceled committee meetings or are holding “organizational” and “educational” meetings instead.

In its rules committee Wednesday, senators took another vote, this one to upend Monday’s proposal. Thursday, the full Senate will take up the matter, which affects the way minority Democrats are distributed among committees.

The Senate is currently under temporary rules, which distribute Democrats in a way the minority party wants, and with support, at least for the time being, from a small group of Republicans.

The Senate could make a change Thursday by adopting permanent rules, supported by Republican leadership, or it could operate under its temporary rules for the session, as it has in the past.

Long before Southern Nevada built its winding highways, desert tortoises roamed freely without consequence. For these federally protected animals, crossing the street without a dedicated path could mean a death sentence.

Along a 34-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 93 near Coyote Springs, fencing and underground tortoise crossings will allow for more safe passage.

“We see substantial road mortality and near-misses in this area,” said Kristi Holcomb, Southern Nevada biological supervisor at the Nevada Department of Transportation. “By adding the fencing, we’ll be able to stop the bleed.”

The federal Department of Transportation awarded Nevada’s transportation agency a $16.8 million grant to build 61 wildlife crossings and 68 miles of fencing along the highway. Clark and Lincoln counties, as well as private companies such as the Coyote Springs Investment group, will fund the project in total.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the federal government listed Mojave desert tortoises as threatened in 1990. The project area includes the last unfenced portion of what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers to be the desert tortoise’s “critical habitat.”

In Clark County, some keep desert tortoises as pets, adoptions for which are only authorized through one Nevada nonprofit, the Tortoise Group. Environmentalists in the area have long worried that sprawling solar projects may have an adverse effect on tortoise populations. As many as 1,000 tortoises per square mile inhabited the Mojave Desert before urban development, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

Crossings prevent inbreeding

One major reason that connecting critical habitat across a highway is paramount is to prevent inbreeding, Holcomb said.

“When you build a highway down the middle of a desert tortoise population, they become shy about crossing the highway,” Holcomb said. “By installing tortoise fences, we’ll give the tortoise population a chance to recover.”

Desert tortoises tend to walk parallel to the fences, which will lead them to the crossings they need to go to the other side. Promoting genetic diversity is one way different tortoise populations can be stabilized, Holcomb said.

The Nevada Department of Transportation doesn’t have a set timeline, and the project will need to go through an expedited federal review process to ensure full consideration of environmental effects.

“Be mindful, not only of tortoises that might be on the roadway, but also of our impacts on tortoises,” Holcomb added.

Contact Alan Halaly at ahalaly@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The snow was falling and the roads were slick to start Thursday in parts of New Mexico and it’s likely that will continue throughout the day.

We’ll see on and off scattered snow showers, especially in parts of southern New Mexico. That will become more widespread with blowing snow possible.

A winter weather advisory is still in effect until Friday morning for 1-3 inches of snow expected and 5-6 inches of snow in higher-elevation areas. It encompasses most of southern New Mexico and stretches just above Interstate 40 near Tucumcari, heading toward the Texas state line.

High temperatures will be at least 10° below average for pretty much everyone.

Meteorologist Kira Miner shares all the details in her full forecast in the video above.

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