A short break from the local police reports is in order (go here if you just can’t get through the weekend without them) to bring you this story about our own little Occupy event yesterday where a couple hundred protesters marched downtown.

They were young college students, middle-aged professionals and older retirees – local faces of the national Occupy Wall Street movement, dubbed here as “Occupy Bozeman.”

Shawn Sheppard, a political science student at Montana State University and an organizer of the event, said he and some friends decided about a week ago to bring the movement to Bozeman.

They were watching Occupy Wall Street protesters on television, and one of Sheppard’s friends talked about traveling to New York City to join the rallies. But Sheppard had another idea. “Let’s do one here,” he said.

Friday, protesters marched from the MSU campus to the Bozeman Public Library, where participants were given the opportunity to speak and address the crowd.

Apparently Margot Kidder of Superman fame is a local and she addressed the crowd. Interestingly, a Google News search on Occupy Bozeman produces two stories about the protest and one on the number of bears that occupy the greater Yellowstone area, presumably unrelated to Occupy Wall Street and other protests.