Legislators give tearful goodbyes, reflect on service, pass the ‘dean’ torch

Sen. John Esp said he heard about a good trick to stop from getting emotional, as some senators and representatives delivered goodbye speeches on the final day of the 2025 Montana Legislature.

“If you clench your butt cheeks together, they will help with that problem,” said Esp, a Republican from Big Timber.

In the House, Rep. Mary Caferro shared in feeling emotional, saying she was grateful to the people who sent her to the Capitol, as she ran 13 times, and in four primaries.

“I’ve been offered hot tea on cold days and cold beer on warm days,” Caffero said. “People say, ‘What are you most proud of?’ and I say, ‘The people I represent.”

Wednesday, Esp, the “Dean of the Senate,” and Caferro, vice chairperson of the House Appropriations Committee, joined other termed-out legislators to give goodbye speeches on the Senate and House floors.

They thanked spouses, children, other family members, friends, constituents, and their colleagues at the Capitol. Esp did so as he learned the clenching trick “ain’t working,” but after 16 years of service, he had learned what was important.

“I’m convinced it’s the relationships we take home with us when we leave here,” Esp said.

At least in the Senate, the comments infused a warm tone in the chamber that was sometimes rare, and where divisive sentiments returned soon after, when a couple of Republicans characterized the session as a “failure.”

The work is by nature political, but Esp’s parting advice to legislators who would continue the job in the future, the “young guns,” as Sen. Susan Webber described, was to support each other.

“Give each other grace. Hold each other up,” Esp said.

In the House, several legislators also said their goodbyes, and it included some singing. Rep. Neil Duram, R-Eureka, sang during his final speech on the House floor, a song from Jack Gladstone, a noted Montanan musician.

He said the song was better shared around a campfire or bedtime for his children, but he sang, and he sang beautifully.

“Maybe I didn’t show it,” Duram said. “But I’ve always been overwhelmed with the talent in this room.”

Leadership in the House thanked their long-time members, bringing several representatives to tears.

In the Senate, Sen. Shane Morigeau, D-Missoula, asked that the “dean” torch, an honorary title given to the longest serving member, be passed to Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, a lawmaker of 13 sessions, and President Matt Regier greeted him as such.

“Welcome, Dean Windy Boy,” said Regier, R-Kalispell.

Minority Leader Pat Flowers, D-Belgrade, the highest-ranking elected Democrat in Montana, said he brought values to the work that he had learned from his parents and applied the ones he learned in Ovando as a young man working outside many years ago.

He said Montanans care about land, water and critters, and they care about each other.

“They care about their friends and neighbors and communities, and they’re always there for them,” said Flowers, D-Bozeman. “In simple terms, what that taught me is that Montanans take care of each other.”

In a gesture he returned, Flowers gave a tie to Republican Sen. Russ Tempel, of Chester, another outgoing senator, a tie Flowers said he had bought for his wife’s memorial.

Flowers said once he had complimented Tempel’s tie, and Tempel had loosened it and handed it over to him. Flowers wore that tie Wednesday.

Webber, a Democrat from Browning, said her service had been “exhilarating” and “exasperating,” and always a mystery that turned out well in the end.

On the final day, Webber extended an invitation to every senator with whom she’d served in the session to her lake cabin, and she warned everyone who might visit about Native American hospitality, or “protocol.”

“As an Indian person, be prepared to be fed,” Webber said.