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Dixon Melon Inc. home office burglarized

By B.L. Azure

Dixon melons are a staple of the Melon Days festivities in Dixon and provide an income to the Harley Hettick family. However, his home office was broken into and the proceeds of this year's harvest were taken. (B.L. Azure photo)

DIXON — Violations of the body and the home are much more than the physical manifestations, they are emotional; they scar a person's outlook and erode trust. They upset the spiritual balance a person has with their fellow man. And so it is with the Harley Hettick family, well-known members of the Dixon and Flathead Reservation communities for their Dixon melons and owners of Dixon Melons Inc. Their home office was broken into over the weekend and all their seasonal earnings were stolen.

This past Saturday the family returned home late in the evening after a long day of selling their Dixon melons at farmers' markets in western Montana. Harley Hettick and wife Joey were actually in Great Falls that day selling melons.

Once they were all together they accounted their sales revenue then one of them went to the basement office to deposit the funds in a safe. Hettick said he heard his soon-to-be daughter-in-law scream. She came running up and told the rest that their safe was open and all the money that was previously in it was gone.

"At first I thought it was a joke, a sick joke but in an instant I knew it wasn't," Harley Hettick said, adding that such a joke is not in the nature of his future daughter-in-law. "It's a nightmare, a total nightmare."

Harley Hettick, the Dixon Melon Man, was robbed of his seasonal harvest of cash this past Saturday. (B.L. Azure photo)

"It was a substantial amount of money. They probably were very surprised about how much money was there," Hettick said. "It is our seed money, the money we need to get the gardens going next spring. And it is the money we live on. It is our earnings for the year. We worked hard for that money and now it's all gone. It's just a bad, bad nightmare."

Hettick said the Sanders County Sheriff's Department and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Police Department have some solid leads.

"I think we know who did it," Hettick said of three suspects, one juvenile teen and two others, both adult teens. "It was definitely an inside job. They knew the times when we would be gone."

Through the years Hettick has employed many people and has been very open with the workers he hires, hosting barbecues and taking some of the employees' children under their wing. So many of them know the Hetticks' Saturday routine of traveling to farmers' markets this time of year.

"There are some young people out there with a large amount of money, a lot of hundred-dollar bills," Hettick said, adding that they have already learned that the suspects are paying people who know what they did "shut-up money."

"This is crazy; the worst thing that has ever happened to me," Hettick said, adding that it is not all about the money: it is about trust and respect. "Through the years we have employed a lot of good hard working people. We have had a lot of fun joking around, a great time just laughing while working. But it's real sad when you realize some of the folks who worked here may be connected to this somehow."

Hettick said there are also people out in the Dixon-area community who know who did the burglary but are keeping tight lipped for fear of some sort of reprisal.

"They are probably worried about getting their tires slashed or windows broken, sugar in the tanks; those kind of things or worse," he said. "But this really affects them too. I would hope that those who know anything about this would muscle up the courage and do the right thing: come forward with what they know."

The Sanders County Sheriff's Department is investigating the break-in, and Dixon Melons Inc. is offering a $2,000 reward to anyone with information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the burglar or burglars.

People with information about the incident are asked to contact the Sanders County Sheriff's Department at (406) 827-3584; or the CSKT Police Department at (406) 675-4700; or Harley Hettick at (406) 246-3526.