The Cascade County Deputy Sheriff Association hosted a competition for students in the County schools to design a license plate that represents Montana, and the winner’s design will be available as a license plate all over the state.

The competition included all grade levels at county schools in Belt, Centerville, Ulm, Cascade, Vaughn, Fort Shaw, and Simms. The competition did not extend to Great Falls Public Schools. The only guideline for the license plate design was to come up with a design that represents Montana.

Community Resource Deputy at the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy Alec Lugo says, “They had free rein to use their imagination and decide to design a plate that best represents Montana in their vision.We saw all sorts of unique designs, a lot of different things about Montana ranging from wildfire to fishing to the animals to the mountains. We saw a lot of good designs that were submitted."

After receiving around 80 submissions from students of all ages across the county, the Cascade County Deputy Sheriff Association narrowed the competition down to one winning design, from Cascade School senior Nordika Goetze.

Goetze explains, “I kind of wanted to do what I thought about whenever I thought about Montana. And that was nature, obviously."

Goetze’s design features Lake McDonald and mountains in Glacier National Park, and animals representing the state including a grizzly bear, a cutthroat trout, and a mourning cloak butterfly in three different phases.

“I can't believe it,” Goetze says. “It's crazy to think that it will be on people's cars, and it will be, like, throughout the state, somewhere in Montana on someone's car."

Once the state approves Goetze’s design, the license plate will be available across Montana.

The proceeds from these license plate sales will go back into the Cascade County community and into the Cascade Charity fund, funding events such as ‘Shop with the Sheriff’ and ‘Stuff the Bus’ events.

Nordika’s design will be available state-wide in 2025.

For more information on events by the Cascade County Deputy Sheriff Association, click here.