Huckleberries Monday:

As Norm Gissel greeted friends prior to the annual Human Rights Banquet in Coeur d’Alene recently, he stopped at The Spokesman-Review table.

“Remember that night in Noxon?” the veteran human-rights leader asked.

How could I forget? Twenty-nine years ago this week (May 26, 1988), the late Bill Wassmuth, Tony Stewart, Marshall Mend, Walt Washington and Gissel met with Montanans who wanted to combat the spread of racism in rural Sanders County. I tagged along to report.

We were met at the Montana border by armed officers in bulletproof vests. That was the first indication that we were no longer in Idaho, Toto. At the Noxon High gym, where chairs were set up for the coming graduation ceremonies, 350 Montanans waited, about 40 to 50 of them supremacists, some dressed in neo-Nazi and KKK regalia. James Doxtater, the Sanders County sheriff at the time, told me there were 24 hardcore separatists in his county, including “six to 12 who would pull the trigger.”

The sheriff called for backup when he saw separatist J.B. Artman, of Victor, Montana, in the audience. Artman later told me that he considered Wassmuth and the others to be an “agitation group” and warned that trouble was brewing in Sanders County.

Several of the speakers were interrupted by a bearded man holding a colored Aryan Nations sign who clapped every time the name of a supremacist was mentioned. However, most of the crowd showed support for the Kootenai County contingent with spontaneous applause.

When the speeches began, Stewart whispered to Mend that the white shirt he was wearing made him a prime target for anyone looking for one. Gallows humor.

We survived. We received a police escort back to the border. We were glad to stop at Sandpoint for a bite and a debriefing. I filed my story for The Spokesman-Review from a Sandpoint restaurant.

Now, we enjoy reliving a story of a night that could have turned out much differently.

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