Submitted photo Kindra Lima-Hagness, left, receives her 2022 Employee Recognition Reward from Montana Chief Justice Mike McGrath.

Former Wolford resident Kindra Lima-Hagness received recognition earlier this year for her work with at-risk youth in western Montana, and she credits her small-town upbringing for her success.

Lima-Hagness received the 2022 Employee Recognition Award by the Montana Judicial System. She serves as the Chief Juvenile Probation Officer for Montana’s 19th Judicial District.

Lima-Hagness, who lives in Libby, Montana, near the Idaho state line, said she still visits her hometown in Pierce County whenever she can.

“I usually come back to the Wolford area in the summertime,” she said. “My mom comes to stay with me for a few months in the winter. So, I was just (in Rugby) April 1. I was there for a few days. I’ll probably be back in June.”

“I like to go to the Corrigidor and have a steak and see lots of people,” she added.

A 1988 graduate of Wolford K-12 School, Lima-Hagness said she had always wanted to work with children.

“I have a degree from Dickinson State University in secondary education,” she said.

Lima-Hagness married her now ex-husband, Jeremy Hagness, who received a job offer at a school contracting business in Montana.

Hagness’ father, Harlow, was the twin brother of Rugby bus business owner Hartley Hagness.

We moved (to Libby) several years ago and Jeremy started running the contracting business,” she said. “I got a job working at a group home with at-risk kids, sort of working as an educational liaison. From that point on, I knew I wanted to work with at-risk kids.”

Non-traditional environment

“I loved it,” she said. “I hated the (traditional) school environment – you do the same thing, over and over. But working with at-risk kids is something different every day.”

After working as an educational liaison at the group home, Lima-Hagness joined a non-profit program headquartered in Seattle, Washington called Home Builders. The program operated in several locations, including her community of Libby.

“It was for teenage kids who were about to be removed from their homes. You’d go into their home and work with the kids and families and try to keep families together,” she said.

After working at Home Builders, Lima-Hagness applied for an open deputy juvenile probation officer job in her county.

“And then within a few months of getting the deputy probation officer job, the chief left, and I was appointed chief by the judge,” she said. “So, I’ve been a probation officer for 27 years, and chief probation officer for almost 27.”

“Just knowing you want to work with kids, the background comes in handy,” she said of her education degree. “In my office, there are three probation officers and two deputies, and we all have education degrees, so I guess we all knew we wanted to work with kids.”

Lima-Hagness said some of her former clients come to visit her as adults.

“I love that they come back, they’re kids that you’ve placed, kids that you’ve done stuff with, and they want you to meet their kids,” she said. “They want you to meet their spouse. They call me when they can’t figure something out, saying, ‘Hey, can you help me with this?'”

She recalled another former client.

“The other day, I had a kid who I had met when she was 11,” Lima-Hagness recounted. “She sat in my chair, criss-cross applesauce, refusing to speak to me when I met her. But the other day, she was in here, thanking me so much – ‘I couldn’t have done this without you; you’re a role model; I want my kids to be like your kids,’ she said.”

“She had done a total 180,” she said. “She had come to me (at 11) because her mom had died and her grandma didn’t know what to do, so they took her to me and said, ‘Kindra, you figure out to do with her.’ Basically, I got her into treatment. She stayed at her grandma’s and they made her come and see me.”

“I worked with her and spent a lot of time with her,” she said.

Lima-Hagness said she would encourage high school students thinking of careers to choose the teaching field.

“There are just so many different capacities,” she said.

Working in the justice system also expanded her horizons.

Wolford influence

“Growing up in Wolford, if you talked about going to the P.O., that meant going to the post office. Here, we all know, you’re going to the probation office,” she said.

“I didn’t have any idea that there was such a thing as child protective services. I didn’t know there were food stamps. So, I grew up very sheltered. I think the majority of us in Wolford were very sheltered,” she added. “There were a lot of things to learn.”

However, life in Wolford helped Lima-Hagness develop a love for community and a desire to become involved. She sits on a foster care review board, a board overseeing court appointed special advocates (CASA) and a DUI task force.

“I love my community,” she said. “Whenever I can help out, I do that.”

“A big thing with Wolford was, even when I moved (to Montana), the education we got in Wolford might not have been as worldly, but our teachers made sure we got an education. I remember Rugby’s grading scale had 90 to 100 as an A. Ours was 94 to 100,” she said. “We all got pretty good grades. So, the standard for our education was pretty high.”

“I remember my senior year, my math teacher, Mr. Deplazes saw me sitting in the senior lounge. I wasn’t going to take advanced algebra,” Lima-Hagness recalled. “Mr. Deplazes said, ‘You need to be in class.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t.’ He said, ‘I called your mom, and you’ve got to be in (the advanced algebra class).’ So, I had no choice, I had to be in that class. He said, ‘you’re going to need it, so you need to be in there.'”

“We had a great staff, and we were very fortunate to be able to grow up in a small town both as a community and educationally,” she said.