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Good morning. This week’s newsletter features lots of, you guessed it, election news — from race results to challenges for voters and election workers. Anticipating that most people have nearly had their fill of election coverage, I threw you a bone: the results of Montana’s latest Jeopardy! contestant. Please read on.
But first, a weather preview ☀️
It’s looking like another lovely fall weekend. Highs are forecast at 55 Friday, 61 Saturday and 66 Sunday. Overnight lows are forecast at 40 Friday, 39 Saturday and 38 Sunday. Winds could reach 14 mph Friday night and into Saturday.
Election Day rush hour leads to major traffic delays outside Billings’ only polling place
Monday afternoon, I paid a visit to the county courthouse to check in with volunteers directing people to MetraPark to vote. Typically, people can drop their ballots at the county courthouse, since it has — until late this summer — housed the elections office. But when a pipe burst in July and the elections staff could no longer expand their cramped office into another part of the courthouse as planned, they moved to MetraPark instead.
Volunteers, organized by Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council, were posted outside the locked courthouse from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday. Despite attempts to communicate the change to the public, many people still didn’t know. As of 4:45 p.m. when I left, 147 people had shown up at the courthouse unaware they couldn’t vote there, volunteers said.
If those voters said they didn’t intend to reroute to the Metra to drop off their ballots, the volunteers offered to deliver them on their behalf.
Getting to the Metra at 5 p.m. on Election Day was a real grind. It took me roughly a half hour to drive from Fourth Avenue North and North 27th Street, where I’d parked, to the Metra. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper in three lanes nearly the entire way.
MetraPark also had the only ballot drop box for the entire county, Elections Administrator Dayna Causby confirmed. It was located at a drive-through kiosk just inside the gates. State law requires ballot boxes to be staffed by at least two people, Causby said.
Asked if she had any concerns about voter access, Causby said she’s always concerned about it and that, given the congestion typical of the MetraPark parking lots, getting in and out efficiently is “definitely” a problem that deserves a closer look.
She said she and her team have already discussed possible changes for next time to improve traffic flow. And in the 2028 presidential election, the county will provide additional staffed, drive-through ballot drop boxes beyond just the one that was available this year.
One voter, Lindsay Wood, was in line inside at the Metra at 6:30 p.m. to obtain a replacement for her lost ballot. She said it took her 15 minutes just to turn off of Main Street and enter the parking lot. She said she also voted at Metra in 2024, “and that was crazy too!” Along with Wood, at least 100 others were in line to remedy ballot problems.
Pulling off the logistics to run the election was no small task. Causby arrived at Metra at 4 a.m. Tuesday. And Jack Hanson, one of the many poll workers who gave their time to make the election possible, said he was on site from noon Tuesday until 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.
New senior living tower under construction at St. John’s campus
St. John’s United has a 12-story senior living tower in the works, set to open in 2028, according to reporting from our friend and esteemed former Billings Gazette editor Steve Prosinski. The $120 million build will have 101 residences for people aged 55 and older, Prosinski reports. And the units will have views of the Rimrocks, the Beartooths and the Pryors. Sounds classy.
ICYMI: Jail measures soundly defeated
Voters in Yellowstone County this week shot down, by a resounding margin, two ballot measures that would have funded expansion of the notoriously overcrowded county jail.
The jail, built for 434 people, regularly holds more than 650.
Both the $175 million bond and the $20 million levy were voted down 56% to 44%, or by a margin of more than 7,000 votes. The bond would have funded construction of an additional 332 beds, including 12 in a medical unit. It would have been repaid over 20 years. The levy would have permanently funded operations to sustain the expansion.
Jack Hanson, a Billings homeowner who frequently attends local government meetings, has vocally opposed the jail expansion plan for months. He called the vote outcome “decisive.”
“As I’ve said publicly many times: It was just unreasonable. And voters saw that,” Hanson told Montana Free Press. “It was way too big. It was way too expensive. And it included zero resources whatsoever for addressing the underlying causes of crime.”
Capt. Brandon Smart, the jail commander, said the results were disappointing but not surprising, given the pushback he’s heard to raising taxes. But, he said, staff would forge ahead.
“We make the best of a bad situation, which is what we’ve been doing for a long time,” Smart said.
You can read my full story here.
Officeholders in previewed races all retain seats
In October, I previewed a handful of local races to watch in the Tuesday election. The incumbent won in each.
Republican Kent O’Donnell, who had been serving as interim sheriff since Mike Linder retired in July, won the seat with 64% of the vote, defeating Democrat Adam Chenoweth. O’Donnell has served at the sheriff’s office since 1997. Chenoweth has served in the U.S. Army and worked at the Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office and at a men’s prerelease facility. Currently, he’s an investigator with the Office of the Public Defender.
On the Board of County Commissioners, Republican Chris White had filled John Ostlund’s seat after he died in a plane crash in 2025. White defeated Democrat Danny Choriki and independent write-in candidate Hans Abbey by winning 60% of the vote. Choriki won 37%, and Abbey won 3%. White spent his career with Albertsons Grocery. Choriki has served on the Billings City Council, and Abbey runs a small business and consults on political campaigns.
In House District 52, Republican Stacy Zinn won with 62% of the vote. House District 52 stretches across the north side of the city along Rimrock Road, out to the Ironwood subdivision and on top of the Rims, including the airport. Zinn is a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was appointed to fill a vacancy after then-Rep. Bill Mercer left for a federal judgeship. Zinn defeated Democrat Elizabeth Heald, a Navy veteran who currently serves as an in-home caregiver to seniors.
In House District 46, Democrat Denise Joy won with 57% of the vote, beating Republican challenger Kim Welzenbach. House District 46 sits just west of downtown, stretching from Parkhill Drive down to Central Avenue. Joy served two terms on the Billings City Council, and Welzenbach is CEO of the Home Builders Association of Billings.
And in Senate District 22 in the Heights, Republican Sen. Daniel Zolnikov won with 86% of the vote. Zolnikov was unopposed in the primary, but for the general election, Democrat Cari Olson and fellow Republican Elijah Tidswell both filed as write-in candidates to challenge Zolnikov, as frustrations mounted in the community regarding the Quantica data center project near Broadview. Zolnikov is often cited by outspoken residents during the public comment period at county commission meetings. Zolnikov sponsored the Right to Compute Act, which the Yellowstone County Attorney’s Office has cited as the reason it advised commissioners not to enact interim zoning to pause the project.
It’s official: Montana has a new Jeopardy! champ.
Erica Doornek, 39, won four games of the cult favorite trivia show during tapings at the Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, in September. And with more than $75,000 in winnings, she’s among the top contestants the state has ever produced. More on that in a bit.
Doornek gathered with friends at Tiny’s Tavern in Billings last Friday to watch her first episode. Her other three episodes aired earlier this week.
“It’s cheesy to say, but it’s very surreal watching yourself on television,” Doornek said.
As Doornek watched that first episode from Billings, amid boxes of pizza and pitchers of beer, her parents hosted a watch party in her hometown of Glasgow, four hours north, complete with homemade chili, trivia-themed games and Glasgow High Scottie pride.
Doornek got just one question wrong on her first show, related to fashion designers. She said Karl Lagerfeld, but the correct answer was Coco Chanel.
Among those she answered correctly was one about sensationalized news reporting: “What is yellow journalism?”
Doornek currently works as an administrative assistant at the Bureau of Reclamation but earned her undergraduate degree in journalism from the University of Montana. She later worked as the copy desk chief at The Billings Gazette for five years. Her Montana roots run deep, and she drew on that for the show.
During her final Jeopardy! question, she wrote underneath her answer the letters F.I.F.P., a riddle for her hometown crowd that stood for “forged in Fort Peck.” She was born in Wolf Point, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation; she grew up boating on the Fort Peck Dam, the roads for which her great-grandfather helped build; and she participated in the Fort Peck Summer Theater. Doornek said a couple of people from Glasgow correctly guessed what the mysterious initials stood for.
Doornek taped her final three episodes in a single day. The show staff had her change tops for each episode, and attendants freshened up her hair and makeup. She said the episodes all ran together, and it’s tough to remember what happened when. By the end of the day, her brain was tired. She started to stray from her play-it-safe strategy and began buzzing in even when she wasn’t certain of the answer.
And of course, the competition was stiff. Doornek said after getting to know some of her fellow contestants and developing a feel for their many areas of intelligence: “I was in awe of them.”
It’s difficult to track down an official, comprehensive list of Montana Jeopardy! contestants, and the show’s communications office didn’t respond to questions. But when Doornek was on set, producers told her she had tied for first place among Montana competitors. (A Stevensville woman and Montana State University alumna also won four games and $104,000 in 2019, but she listed her current city of residence in Utah, and not her hometown.)
“They were like, ‘We went and looked it up. The only other person from Montana who’s won four games was Liz Barnea, a librarian from Billings.’”
Barnea won $28,900 in 1990. Plugged into the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator, that equals $75,543.57 in today’s dollars. Doornek didn’t have the precise figure of her earnings by press time. She said she knew it was greater than $75,000 and thought it was $75,401.
Doornek’s earnings will likely go toward a new vehicle. She’s got her eye on a hybrid.
I asked what, if anything, competing on Jeopardy! changed for her, or whether it would make her pivot any life plans.
“I don’t know what I could parlay this into,” Doornek mused. “I think I’ll just keep living my normal life and see what happens.”
Public Notice 🧐
City Council reviews sale of Ramada Park
🗓️ Monday, Nov 9
⏰ 5:30 p.m.
📍 316 N. 26th St., fifth floor
The City Council will vote on whether to move ahead with two more sales of undeveloped public space at its regular Monday meeting. The plots under consideration this week are Ramada Park, a one-acre section tucked into a residential neighborhood north of Rimrock Road, and the Minnesota Avenue parking lot, a half-acre lot at South 27th Street. The proposals are part of a plan to cut costs and focus resources on developed city parks. Many residents have protested the sales.
Game of the Week 🏆
The undefeated and number-one ranked West High Bears take on the Great Falls High Bison in a class AA football quarterfinal under the lights Friday at 7 p.m. at Sam McDonald Stadium at Daylis.
About Town 🚶
Now through Dec. 15, the Junior League of Billings is collecting boys’ and girls’ pajamas of all sizes to give to youth in foster care. Donations can be made at the Children’s Desk at Billings Public Library. Monetary donations can be made online.
Montana singer-songwriter Zechariah Peabody, originally from Wilsall, will play live country, folk, bluegrass and Americana music Saturday at 6 p.m. at 105 Brewing in the Heights. 105 Brewing is a combined brewery and coffee house and, in my opinion, a brilliant business plan.
