23 August 2022 — 1448 mdt

Republican stalwarts Derek and Ronalee Skees are
pulling up their Flathead stakes and moving to Billings

By James Conner

The Skees at the April, 2014, Oathkeepers rally in Kalispell. J. Conner photo.

By now it’s no secret. State Rep. Derek Skees (R, HD-11, SW Kalispell and Lakeside) and his wife, Ronalee, both powerhouses in the Flathead’s Republican Party, are moving to Billings.

Ronalee’s last day here is Friday. She’ll be working in the development sector of the Yellowstone County area’s healthcare industry, where she can make more money than in the Flathead and live for less. Derek, who must live in Flathead County to represent his legislative district, will stay in Kalispell until January, when his fourth and last term expires. His plans for Billings are in the development stage.

Derek has represented HD-11 since 2016. He served his first term representing HD-4 (Whitefish) when he won a surprise 85-vote victory over Democrat Will Hammerquist in 2010, a year of electoral disaster for Democrats.

In the 2022 primary in June, Derek lost the Republican nomination for District 5 of the Montana Public Service Commission to Ann Bukacek, M.D., by 87 votes. In 2014, he lost the GOP PSC-5 nomination to Brad Johnson by 814 votes.

Two years earlier, he won the GOP nomination for state auditor, but lost to incumbent Monica Lindeen, 248,447 to 215,743.

Ronalee, a member of Flathead County’s board of health, where she did not always agree with former health member Ann Bukacek, lost the 2014 GOP primary in HD-7 (old downtown Kalispell) to former police chief Frank Garner 809 to 288. Garner went on to win four terms representing HD-7. She lost the June, 2022, GOP primary in HD-11 to Tanner Smith, 1,545 to 776, a margin that surprised me.

Both Skees are active in the Republican Party at county and state levels, with reputations for slash and burn tactics. But politically, they are not two peas in a pod.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My relationship with the couple goes back to 2010, when Derek filed for HD-4 and I posted a report warning Democrats that he was a bona fide candidate who could win that Democratic leaning district which had been represented by Mike Jopek.

Derek caught hell from Montana’s liberal blogs, often from bloggers who were anonymous. Coming from a modern southern honor culture in which men worked out their differences face to face, that galled him (it galls me, too; anonymous internet commentary corrupts political discourse). On a late summer’s evening that year, I encountered Derek coming out of Costco. He stopped. “Mr. Conner?” he asked. “Yes.” Grabbing my hand firmly, he said, “Thank you for not being anonymous.” I understood — I spent part of my college career in Texas, and studied honor cultures while working on my minor in psychology — and knew I could get along with him on a personal basis.

Maintaining good relations with the Skees did not keep me from pulling punches when I disagreed with them politically. For example, after Derek criticized Montana’s constitution as a “socialist rag” last year, I wrote a long post that defended his right to criticize Montana’s constitution while warning that his apparent political objectives were not in the liberal mainstream.

In the years since meeting them, when I was photographing the Independence Day and county fair parades, Ronalee, marching with the Republicans, would walk across the street to give me a big hug. That’s the way politics should work, must work, if a society is to be civil and at peace with itself.

Pulling up stakes after living many years in a community is hard. So is putting down roots in a new community. It means leaving behind friends and the social networks that sustain us and provide help when we need it. However bright their economic prospects in Billings, Derek and Ronalee will encounter dark moments while settling in. I wish them well in their new home.

I’ll conclude with a personal note.

Two years ago, in mid-June, after I had begun kidney dialysis, and was wondering whether I would be alive more than a few months, Ronalee sent me a note that lifted my spirits greatly:

May you find peace and prosperity in Billings, Derek and Ronalee. Take care of yourselves.