A sprawling memorial to a Billings woman killed in a motorcycle crash earlier this year is under threat of removal.
Savanah Rose Robinson died on Memorial Day. What started as a circle of rocks in a dip on the north side of Highway 3 expanded into a sprawl of stones decorating a portion of a hillside and an iron marker of welded horseshoes, a pair of wings and a heart topped with a cowboy hat. The marker is coated in shades of purple and pink.
“Everything was pink with her,” said Lemuel Robinson, who built the memorial to his daughter over the course of several weeks. “She loved to laugh and make people laugh.”
Lem Robinson spent every morning since early July making additions to his daughter’s memorial, hauling in river rock and smoothing out the hillside with a pickaxe and shovel. Earlier this month, he received a letter from the administration of Billings-Logan International Airport and the Montana Department of Transportation that the memorial violated state zoning codes and was a distraction hazard for drivers.
While MDT has since rescinded their complaint against the memorial, Robinson is still facing a deadline of Oct. 17 from the airport’s administration to remove the memorial from the land owned by the city.
“Nothing’s been touched at this point,” Robinson said Tuesday. “I don’t see why this is such a big deal, and I don’t see how this can’t be a good thing.”
The crash
Late on the night of May 26, first responders were called to Highway 3 west of North 27th Street Roundabout. A motorcyclist, later identified as Brian Scott Campbell, had gone off the right side of the highway, near the airport’s water tower, while riding west. Savanah Robinson was riding with him. Campbell was hospitalized, but Robinson did not survive the crash.
Robinson, 22, earned her associate degree in business administration from Montana State University Billings in 2024, having made the dean’s list multiple times during her education. Savanah, who landed her first job at a Billings casino when she was 18, had ambitions to make a living in the casino industry, her father said. She was planning to make a move to Las Vegas to realize those dreams.
“I understand, now, why she wanted out of Billings,” Lem Robinson said, “because she was in the wrong crowd.”
Campbell has since been charged with vehicular homicide while under the influence, with county prosecutors alleging he was drunk the night of the crash. The results of a blood draw taken about nine hours after the wreck showed his BAC at .081, court documents said, and his urine tested positive for benzodiazepine, cocaine, opiates and THC. Campbell had a history of driving under the influence, the Gazette previously reported, and he is currently in custody at Yellowstone County Detention Facility with his bond set at $275,000.
Remembering
Roadside memorials are grim, but they can also be beautiful. They can be stark reminders of how fragile life can become on the road, tributes for friends and family members to show the public who the world lost, or they can be a major piece of the grieving process. For Lem Robinson, it’s all three.
Starting in early July, he said he spent two hours every morning carrying river rock in two five-gallon buckets to the hill opposite Highway 3. Robinson said he used the time to think about his daughter and used the stones to form a large “S” and two hearts on the hillside. Deeper in the ravine is a circle of rocks and an old, bent highway post draped in pink scarves and bandanas.
Yellowstone County prosecutors filed criminal charges against Campbell on Sept. 5. A week later, Savanah Robinson’s parents received a letter signed by Billings-Logan International Airport Assistant Aviation Supervisor Paul Khera and Montana Department of Transportation District Administrator Michael Taylor.
The substance of the letter was to inform Lem Robinson that Savanah’s memorial was not allowed without a proper permit and that it might be a distraction for passing drivers. They asked for the memorial to be removed within 30 days, no later than Oct. 17.
In a written response to the City of Billings, Yellowstone County Commissioners and MDT, Robinson said the memorial was not an obstruction and asked for officials to reconsider policies regarding roadside memorials. He also requested that statewide laws regarding motorcycle safety be reassessed.
While he could not comment on the airport’s request for Robinson to remove his daughter’s memorial beyond the letter that was issued earlier this month, City Administrator Chris Kukulksi agreed with Robinson that there are far too many motorcycle deaths in Montana, and encouraged him to connect with legislators to see that there is more accountability for motorcyclists whose actions result in injuries and fatalities.
Earlier this week, Michael Taylor with MDT contacted Robinson, saying that he had personally visited the site and determined that it was not encroaching on the right of way belonging to MDT. Thus, the department’s complaint against the memorial was resolved.
“We’re very understanding of what he’s trying to accomplish there,” Taylor said in an interview with the Gazette. “And with the tragedy that his family experienced, we want to make sure we’re sensitive to that, but we definitely don’t want to induce a roadside hazard. I reviewed the site and determined it wasn’t a hazard.”
MDT, in collaboration with the American Legion of Montana, offers the Montana Highway Fatality Marker Program. Through the program, American Legion volunteers install and maintain the highway posts headed by white crucifixes all across the state’s roads.
Paul Khera could not be reached for comment, but Robinson said the Aviation and Transit Board will be holding their monthly meeting Oct. 1, and the memorial will be a topic of discussion.
“They said they will destroy it,” Robinson said. “Are they bluffing? I don’t know.”
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