One of my favorite things to do when I meet someone from Anaconda is to mention the name Blake Hempstead.

Usually, I don’t even have to say his last name. Sometimes, I don’t even need to finish saying his first name before I get an eyeroll or a smile.

Blake is a guy I have long called the Anaconda town crier. He is a lightning rod in the Smelter City, where it seems like Anaconda residents, past and present, either absolutely love him or they cannot stand him. There is very little, if any, middle ground.

That is because Blake is an unapologetic teller of the truth, as he sees it. He is never afraid to tell someone to get bent if that person needs to, indeed, get bent. He is never afraid to tell someone to get bent, even if that someone does not need to.

He has a master’s degree in burning bridges with a minor in tracklessness.

Full disclosure, Blake is one of my good friends. If I need something — anything — I know that he would come through for me in the blink of an eye. But he is also usually the first one to make fun of me.

When former Anaconda coach Maury Cook was hired to lead the Butte High’s girls’ basketball program, I texted Blake to ask for his phone number. Blake’s response was “(406) 867-5309.” Then he wrote a column to publicly ridicule me for calling Jenny Jenny’s number, as he should have.

Usually, I get a kick out of following Blake’s fights in Anaconda, and there have been many. I laughed when he slammed his laptop and quit as a school board trustee in the middle of a Zoom school board meeting.

He quit the board in a huff, but not before playing an instrumental role in the remodeling of Memorial Gym.

I laughed when he went on a Facebook rampage about the goofy Anaconda people who are feeding the deer. I laughed even more when he publicly called out the organizer of a fun event for dropping quarters on the crowd from a helicopter.

Silly Anaconda.

The thing about Blake, though, is that nobody cares more about his hometown than he does. Not many people have done more for the youth of Anaconda, either. There has certainly never been a media member who has done more.

That does not end with his writing about, taking photos of and broadcasting Anaconda Copperheads games, either. Through his business, Anode Designs, Blake and his family have been very generous to Copperhead sports and the Smelter City over the years.

Last year, Blake spent several hundred dollars of his own money to rent a dunking booth that he placed outside his business on Park Avenue. That day he raised $2,600 for various charitable causes in Anaconda and Butte.

If properly advertised, I figured Blake’s appearance in the dunk booth could have raised enough money to pay off the national debt. Those who love him and those who cannot stand him would have revel in the chance to dunk him.

Maybe Elon can get on that one this summer.

Blake is an incredibly talented writer — especially when he’s blatantly trying to copy my style — and he’s one of the best sports announcers in the state. He is also a great sports historian. He puts the achievements of current Copperheads in perspective with the Copperhead greats of yesterday so they can be properly recognized.

Yes, the student-athletes of Anaconda are lucky to have Blake.

That is why it was so puzzling to see Blake’s latest fight with some of the leaders in Anaconda.

Last year, Blake pulled a trailer into the Charlotte Yeoman-Martin Complex, and he placed it outside the right field fence so he could broadcast Anaconda softball games with some protection from the elements.

He did that because he has some expensive equipment that he does not want to have to replace every time it rains during a home game. This spring, on short notice, Anaconda-Deer Lodge County said Blake needs to have a special use permit and insurance outside the policy he already has for his business, and those are cost prohibitive for a guy who already loses money covering the games.

This sudden demand was puzzling, to say the least, but I was not about to get involved in Blake’s latest fight in Anaconda. He is strong enough to fight for himself, and I am pretty sure he likes those fights. So, he does not need my help.

I shared Blake’s Facebook post about the dispute and asked my usual question, “What in the heck is going on in Anaconda?” But that was going to be the extent of my involvement in the matter.

Then, out of the blue, I received a lengthy text message an Anaconda-Deer Lodge official to inform me a little bit about Blake’s situation before I “did a big story on him.”

Never have I received any sort of preemptive message from a government official to try to stop me from writing or influence a column before I wrote it — or even thought about writing it.

I already suspected that Blake’s dispute was fueled, at least in part, by pettiness and government retribution because of his willingness to tell people to get bent. After all, we see that kind of stuff all the time over here in Butte, America.

The text from the government official, who does not like seeing Blake “playing the victim,” clinched that suspicion for me. That is because the text did not simply try to explain the county’s side of the story.  Rather, the text included accusations that Blake fraudulently claimed his radio equipment was stolen from county property to get money from the county on two separate occasions.

The only thing I can say about those allegations is that I would bet my life on Blake’s honesty. Of all the qualities my friend Biff possess, that is one of his strongest. He might be a knucklehead, but he is an honest knucklehead.

Either way, I do not know what that has to do with parking a trailer outside the right field fence. It reeks of an attempt to slander his character in an effort to get a little out-of-court prior restraint.

The result of this dispute was that Blake was not there to broadcast the home opener for the 2025 Copperhead softball team. So, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents who could not make the game, could not follow Blake’s call on the internet.

Oh, he could have brought his expensive radio gear and risked losing it all in the unpredictable weather of the Montana spring. But would you do that with your expensive equipment?

This week, Blake plans to pull his trailer and park in the parking lot — several hundred feet from home plate — and broadcast the game from there. For some reason, Anaconda-Deer Lodge does not need a special use permit for the publicly-owned parking lot like it suddenly does for the publicly-owned grass.

So, Blake will break out his binoculars and call the game from the Uecker Seats.

He will do that because he knows that those girls who play softball for the Copperheads deserve to have someone call their games. He will do it because it is the right thing to do.

He will also do it to highlight the government overreach that is on full display in Anaconda-Deer Lodge County.

The thing is, it does not matter who is right in this argument. Maybe Blake could have taken steps ahead of time to prevent it. Maybe insurance companies could be more reasonable. Perhaps the county should have just left well enough alone.

Semantics do not matter when we can plainly see that county officials, whatever their motives, are hindering a journalist who is trying to report on high school sports.

No, Blake could not possibly play the victim in this case.

This time, it is Copperheads who are being told to get bent.

— Bill Foley, who also doesn’t mind telling someone to get bent, can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74 or Bluesky at @foles74.bsky.social. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.