Briefly

Former University of Montana president Robert Pantzer dies

Missoula Robert T. Pantzer, the University of Montana’s 12th president, is dead of pneumonia at the age of 90.

Pantzer died in Spokane Thursday.

As UM president from 1966 to 1974, Pantzer was faced with student riots in the wake of Kent State, racial issues, classroom censorship and a work-study scandal that rocked the athletic department.

“It was a very, very difficult period which he handled very well,” said current UM President George Dennison.

Pantzer was appointed in 1966 after serving four months as acting president. He was a graduate of the UM’s school of business administration and its law school.

Pantzer’s law career included stints as county attorney of Liberty County in Chester until 1950, Park County attorney from 1951 to 1955 and city attorney in Livingston until 1957, when he accepted a teaching post at the UM.

Before his presidency, he served as a professor of business administration and financial vice president.

To honor him, the Robert T. Pantzer Award was established in 1974 and is presented to a person who has made a substantial contribution toward making the UM a humane and free environment for inquiry and learning. A new dormitory, Pantzer Hall, also honors the former president.

After retiring from the UM, Pantzer became an administrator for the law firm of Rutan and Tucker in Santa Ana, Calif., in 1975. Several years later, Pantzer and his wife, Ann, moved to a retirement community in Santa Rosa on the edge of a golf course.

They returned to Missoula in the late 1980s.

No public memorial ceremony is planned, said son David. Cremation has taken place.

“My mom’s desire and my brother’s and sister’s is to have a small family memorial for him,” he said.

Police seek convicted murderer for violating her probation

Secret Witness is offering a reward for information that helps authorities arrest a woman previously convicted of second-degree murder.

Kendall Brooks, 34, was sentenced in July 1994 to serve 123 months in prison after she pleaded guilty. She since has been released and is wanted for violating her probation, Spokane Police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

She stands 5-foot-8, 145 pounds with blond hair and hazel eyes.

Because of her criminal record, Brooks is listed as a “caution” suspect for law enforcement officers, Cottam said.

Anyone with information is asked to call Secret Witness at 327-5111. Callers can use a code name or number instead of their names.

Hunter finds thousands of marijuana plants in forest

Cashmere, Wash. Thousands of marijuana plants worth $3 million were found by a hunter on land in the Wenatchee National Forest about seven miles southeast of this Chelan County town.

More than 3,000 plants were planted in dense woods for about half a mile along a small creek a mile from a nearby road, Chelan County Sheriff Mike Harum said Saturday.

The plants were found Thursday, and on Friday deputies and agents with the Columbia River Drug Task Force found a camp and a sophisticated irrigation system, Harum said.

The plants were destroyed. There were no arrests.

Investigators believe the operation is related to similar ones found last month in the Stemilt Basin, north of Chelan Airport and near Daroga Park in Douglas County, Harum said.

Between late August and early October, authorities confiscated more than 15,500 pot plants worth $15.5 million at four farms in Chelan and Douglas counties.

“They are very sophisticated and professional compared with what we’ve found in the past,” Harum said.